Temps d’Images 2015 Common body
Temps d’Images 2015 Common body
Domestic Products
Calendar
In a country well-known for its export of domestic labour, hiring exotic in-house helpers is becoming a status symbol. Like many other Filipinos, Joy comes to Romania in order to support her family. The intermediating agency places her as a nanny for the two children of an affluent family. All goes well, until one day, the father of the family comes on to her. When Joy complains to the wife, instead of confronting her husband, she comes up with an intriguing proposal. Soon, Joy finds herself trapped in a domestic cage. What started out as a favour to her employers is from now on demanded of her. Gradually, Joy becomes their domestic slave. This story is inspired by a real case. The real-life Joy lives in Bucharest, Romania.
Like her, hundreds of Filipinos in Romania struggle with a system which fails to acknowledge domestic work. Although Domestic Products is based on the experience of migrant women, it tells the story of all women, and speaks about the real price of domestic and reproductive labour. Domestic Products speaks against the sexualization of domestic work.
concept, directed by: Ioana Păun
written by: Xandra Popescu
with: Ioana Flora, Smaranda Nicolau
investigation: Laura Ștefănuț
movement: Carmen Coţofană
music: Cătălin Rulea, Diana Miron
producer: Ioana Păun, co-producţie WASP
www.creativelaboratories.ro/produsedomestice/
About the artists
Ioana Păun (b. 1984) is a young director working and researching internationally, having graduated from Goldsmiths University London and UNATC Bucharest. Her work explores the ways humans behave in ferocious political, economic and health circumstances. Ioana is often working with teams of investigative journalists and contemporary thinkers, pushing various ethical buttons. Paun’s performances and ideas got support from contemporary performance art institutions such as Theatre Royal Stratford East, Kunstraum Lakeside, CEC ArtsLink, Teatro Luna Chicago, MNAC, and others.
Xandra Popescu works as an artist, writer and film maker. She studied Dramatic Writing at the National Theatre and Film University in Bucharest and has a a background in Political Science. Her work looks at personal issues from a political and poetical point of view. She has co-written three films together with Ștefan Constantinescu: Family Dinner and Six Big Fish as well as several other scripts and plays. At the end of 2012 she shot her first documentary film Pink Saloon. She sometimes works under the name Soyons Impossible together with artist and performer Larisa Crunțeanu. Together, they power Atelier35 – a project space in Bucharest, committed to expanding the boundaries of contemporary art. Currently, Xandra lives and works in Berlin and Bucharest.
Laura Ștefănuț is a freelance journalist who worked for România liberă newspaper and Digi 24 TV station. She is presently collaborating with DoR magazine, Casa Jurnalistului and the German media. She was the first journalist to write about the abuses of Filipino domestic workers in Romania. In 2013 she documented the issue in the US, with the help of a DoS grant.
Cătălin Rulea (n. 1979) is an artist and musician based in Bucharest. He is a founding member of the band Pixels and frontman of the band Toulouse Lautrec. As an artist he has had several exhibitions, the most notable being those in Kunsthalle(Vienna), Werkleiz Society (Halle), Cooper Gallery (Dundee), Fotogalerie (Vienna), Bucharest Biennial, Rex Cultural Centrum (Belgrade). He is a founding member of the Center for Visual Introspection and has worked with Alina Șerban, Arnold Estefan and Anca Benera as part of the PLUS4 Association.
