KIM EUNHYUNG

Air out your dirty laundry

Project for communal laundry presented for the Blauwe Huis by Eun Hyung Kim

and Natalia Calderón

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We have been taught to resolve our issues or problems indoors, at home. We

are educated to be careful about not to show them at public, not to air them

out. What will happen if we do air them out?

We propose to bring your dirty laundry outdoors, to make it mix and strike one

with another. To have you cloth together with your neighbor’s in a community

wash with the aim of cleaning the outcome of it.

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Ijburg is a specially problematic neighborhood where people are not

comfortable with the neighbors they have. They complain about them, but

they do not try to fix their problems with the others. They better complain

individually than confronting their differences publicly.

By mixing together cloth from people that differ from each other, we do not

look after an instant solution in which problems between them get solved and

forgotten. We aim for people to look at this act as a sample, as a metaphor for

accepting that problems exist. It is not about eliminating them, but to recognize

them and accept the differences. They must be spoken at loud not indoors,

privately but rather outside.

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It is important to highlight how public space has change through modernism

and postmodernism. Places of gathering used to be open spaces they were

including spaces. Individualistic culture has taken these places in which we

used to meet. Shopping malls and supermarkets had become our favorite

places to “go out”. Laundry has become also an individual activity. Each family

has its own washing machine. Consumism and individualism have infiltrated us

abolishing the concept of public and communal, over estimating individuality.

By a communal washing we also seek for people to meet outside.

Remembering past times in which women gathered to wash their laundry

together. Beyond the metaphor of airing out problems, we aspire with this

event to gather neighbors outside for them to build the public sphere by

establishing relations outside.

 

Processes of “Air out your dirty laundry”

 

1. one day before the event

- Ask people to attend tomorrow

( wash for free)

- Explain our project to people

- Give the flyer

2. event day (preparation)

- Settle the washing machine

- Settle the electricity - water in

- water out

- Settle the lines for the clothes

- Preparing Bottles and Stickers

3. event takes place

- People come with dirty laundry

(meeting place, communal washing)

- Documenting the evnt with photographs

- Hang the dirty clothes on the line

- Mixing the clothes from different houses

4. development of the event

- Collect the out coming water in the bottles

( the out coming water might be dark opacity into transparency)

- The stickers are put on the bottles

(The bottles ...1234567...)

- The washing finish,

then hang the clean clothes on the line

- Waiting people to pick it up

 

Necessary

1. Washing machine

(Cleaning the dirty laundry)

2. Electricity

(Functioning the washing machine)

3. Long tube

(Connecting between the washing machine and water)

4. Bottles (5 bottles of 5 liters per washing)

(Dirty water is put in the bottles)

5. Stickers

(The stickers are put on the bottles)

6. Lines and clothes pins

(Hanging laundry on the line)

7. Promotion

(Invitations and posters)

8. People that help us (1-3 persons)

 

Documentation of the event

We will document by saving the water that comes out from the washing

machine in different bottles one for each washing stage. A series of

photographic images will help us narrate of the event.

 

Eun Hyung Kim and Natalia Calderón,

March, 2009