Las trabajadoras de Brukman. 8 trajes con dos historias paralelas (The Workers of Brukman. 8 Suits with Two Parallel Stories)

Alice Creischer

Gerolstein, Germany, 1960

Andreas Siekmann

Hamm, Germany, 1961
  • Date: 
    2004-2006
  • Material: 
    Textil, paper and paperboard
  • Technique: 
    Digital drawing and sewn
  • Descriptive technique: 
    An installation made up of ten embroidered garments and stitched pieces, 10 corresponding numbered texts, based on the arrangement of the garments and 19 digital drawings (59,3 x 42 cm each part)
  • Dimensions: 
    Variable dimensions
  • Category: 
    Installation
  • Entry date: 
    2008
  • Register number: 
    AD04967

The work of Alice Creischer and Andreas Siekmann presents the retelling of experiences of exploitation and exclusion produced by capitalism and the principles by which it has operated throughout history. Las trabajadoras de Brukman (The Workers of Brukman) was included in the project ExArgentina, which was developed between 2001 and 2006, and is an installation connected to its approach to social questions concerning developing countries and their attempts at achieving direct participation from the community. The roots of the work lie in the response to the Argentine economic crisis of 2001, the so-called “corralito”. Creischer and Siekmann did the work in collaboration with the female workers from the Brukman textile factory in Buenos Aires who had decided to keep the factory working after it had originally been closed by the aforementioned crisis. The installation bears witness to an experiment in self-management and taking over the business by workers at a time when the factory owners had lost all authority and leadership. The decision to create this work was taken at a workers’ assembly meeting, where they discussed the artist’s proposal to make ten suits that would tell the story of how the factory was taken over, along with references to the communiqués that the G8 was sending from the Museum Ludwig in Cologne in June 1999. By juxtaposing a local experience with a global event held at a museum, the group brings institutional criticism and post-colonial theory together.

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