Irena Haiduk. Against Biography

screen capture from Against Biography (2015), IRENA HAIDUK
on March 28, 2017
image © we find wildness

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IRENA HAIDUK is not only against biography but she is also part of the documenta 14 with a project entitled Nine Hour Delay.

Initiated in 2012, the work consists of the distribution of ergonomic footwear called Borosana to the workforce of the host institution where the project is exhibited. The documenta press release stated that all those, regardless of gender, who are seduced by the prospect of wearing ergonomic women’s footwear and are employed for documenta 14 are eligible to receive a pair of Borosana Shoes within the rubric of Nine Hour Delay.

The Borosana shoe was first developed over a nine-year period (1960-69) at Borovo Rubber Industry Headquarters in Vukovar, Yugoslavia. After being designed and tested by the Borovo female workforce and an orthopedic surgeon, the shoe was mandatory for Yugoslav women working in the public sector. Borosana was launched in 1969, in white and navy colors, featuring an ergonomic platform, calculated as ideal for nine hours of standing without hurting the wearer’s spine. In the declining years of Yugoslav communism the model was withdrawn from mass production. Fabrication was abandoned when Vukovar became a war zone in 1991.
Each time this project is exhibited Borosana becomes the official work shoe of the host institution advancing the constructivist maxim of great utilitarian design in service of the working woman. The shoe extends the architecture of labor and provides the wearers with a distinction between labor time and leisure time. Borovo remains the last public Yugoslav infrastructure. The inability to legally split and privatize the company’s public assets prevents Yugoslavia from fully formally splitting to this day. With every new step Yugoslavia persists (insists). – http://yugoexport.com

On March 30, 2017 IRENA HAIDUK will recount the progress of the oral corporation Yugoexport at Parko Eleftherias, Athens Municipality Arts Center (5 pm).

The whole text Against Biography is available here http://yugoexport.com/sitefiles/2_AGAINST_BIOGRAPHY.pdf

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