Kristina Müntzing
Mee-Mawing

 
Performance

 

3 October 16

 

Kristina Müntzing, Mee-Mawing, 2016, Courtesy the artist
Kristina Müntzing, Mee-Mawing, 2016, Courtesy the artist

 

Mee-Mawing (2016) is an artistic research project investigating communication and hidden languages through references to the history of the textile industries and to the emergence of socialist movements.

During the 20th century, groups of female textile workers from Lancashire (UK) invented Mee-Mawing, a secret language they used to communicate through the loud noises of the cotton mills. A combination of mime, lip-reading and dance, Mee-Mawing allowed for work-related conversations, everyday chit-chats and political discussions which would remain unintelligible to their supervisors.

Kristina Müntzing took this language and its history as her point of departure and went on to explore its roots, various roles, and potentials. Aiming to re-create the last imaginary Mee-Mawing conversation, Müntzing’s performers (Eva Bakardjiev, Maayan Danach, Stina Malmqvist, Maya Raghavan, Marie Zwinscher) interact with her large sculptural works and through their movement a choreography unfolds – a dialogue between working bodies and objects.

In 2016, Kristina Müntzing is artist in residence of the International Artists Studio Program in Sweden (IASPIS) at KW Institute for Contemporary Art.