“Blood, Sweat and Tears – Assembling Past and Future” transforms the Galerie im Körnerpark into a space for discussion and reflection on peace and conflict management. Its historical anchor is the first International Women’s Peace Congress at The Hague in 1915, during which the participants debated the sociopolitical, economic and intellectual prerequisites for a future lasting peace. Blood, Sweat and Tears sees itself as an artistic search for whatever ties together those committed to a peaceful world.
The project consists of a two-part exhibition. The first part encompasses the research project Women to Go, which has been ongoing since 2005. In it Mathilde ter Heijne researches the lives of women who have fallen to the margins of history or been forgotten entirely. She has now expanded the series by 24 historical biographies of women who championed peace.
“Blood, Sweat and Tears” grew out of a collaboration between peace activists and a network of people from the creative community. Through a video installation, the exhibition space becomes a virtual conference. Historical images and text are overlaid with contemporary statements and portraits, allowing the different temporal planes and materials to permeate each other.
Mathilde ter Heijne’s collaborative approach probes the relationship between the participating individuals and the conditions on site. By destabilizing boundaries between the actors, places, and periods of time, the project lays the groundwork for a new understanding of history. This epistemic interest derives from the need for nonviolent communication and community. Boundaries between art, activism and a constantly shifting existence are consciously blurred, and supposedly firm categories are suspended: past, present and future; reality, fiction and virtual space; community and individual.
With friendly support by the Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs and the Mondriaan Fonds.