Mariechen Danz – WOMB TOMB

"Danz proposes a mapping and archaeology of the human body that is in a constant state of becoming and yet always already deceased. It is a body that is fragmented and dissected, flayed and untouched at the same time. Procedures of biological and medical surveying, political and judicial attempts of standardisation as well as cultural processes of attributing meaning have inscribed themselves into it."
 

Mariechen Danz treated her installation at the Arsenale like a primordial theater that the audience is invited to inhabit. The floor is made of a local mud, which rises to form a pedestal for her thermoactive sculpture, “Womb Tomb,” as well as a stage. A set of feet cast in different materials, like coal and agate, walk along the wall. “The idea is that the whole room offers a change of perspective,” Danz says. “There is no clarity between north, south, east, west. The piece is a map of itself.”