Anne Peschken / Marek Pisarsky (Urban Art)
Die Näherinnen

In their artistic practice, they draw on a variety of media, materials, and techniques that emerge from an analysis of the specific spatial context. They view spaces as multidimensional and explore their social, urban, aesthetic, and historical aspects, which they blend together and renegotiate in public space as “urban street workers.” The reuse and reinterpretation of materials in the sense of recycling or upcycling are another important part of their artistic strategy. Since relocating their studio to the countryside in Poland, they have been increasingly active in the German-Polish border region. 

Work Title: Die Näherinnen

Die Näherinnen (German for “The Seamstresses”) is a pixel image created from painted and discarded canvases by the art factory Globalpix. Only from a distance – the only perspective from which the subject of a pixel image becomes clear – does the subject become visible: female workers in a Chinese textile factory. The work alludes to the global relocation of textile production, the once-thriving textile industry in Cottbus, and, at the same time, to the environmental and social consequences of the globalised fast-fashion industry.

The work is complemented by the Globalpix Factory 2.0 loom, specially designed by the two artists, on which disused canvases are woven into new picture surfaces, as well as a video documenting the creative process in the studio. In this way, the production process itself becomes part of the work, and questions regarding overproduction, reuse and the circular economy can be experienced first-hand.