The Invisible Women of Erste Campus

Film program
4/10 2022 — 12/3 2023 
Erste Campus

Erste Campus x Kunsthalle Wien

The Invisible Women of Erste Campus (2016) was commissioned for the Erste Campus. Iveković made the film in collaboration with a group of 20 women, mostly immigrants from Southeastern and Eastern Europe, who clean the vast premises of the Campus. On the premises of Erste Campus, the film is shown on monitors installed in the elevator areas throughout the building. Whereas these parts of the work are only accessible to the employees working on-site, during the exhibition Works of Heart (1974–2022), the film is also presented to the public in the Atrium of Erste Campus in cooperation with Kunsthalle Wien.

Erste Campus, Atrium
Am Belvedere 1 • 1100 Vienna

Visiting hours: Mon – Fri, 9 am – 8 pm • free entry

The project was for the Erste Campus, the new office complex built on the site of the former Südbahnhof train station in Vienna, which brings together 4,500 employees of Erste Holding, Erste Bank Oesterreich, and its subsidiaries. Curators Kathrin Rhomberg and Pierre Bal-Blanc invited ten artists to develop new projects to be displayed on the premises of the Campus.

Inspired by the Berwick Street Film Collective documentary Nightcleaners (1975), Iveković made her film. In addition to documenting the overwhelming contemporary architecture and the cleaners’ after-hours work inside it, Iveković also recorded a video portrait of each woman. The women were asked to choose from a selection of verses excerpted from the work of Croatian poet Aida Bagić and recite them for the camera in their native language. The verses referenced the themes of origin, displacement, women’s labor, everyday routines, and endurance.

 

Exhibition