Four oversized clothing labels seem to be stitched to the floor with their loose ends waving in the wind in front of the former washhouse. The sculptural work is made out of casted aluminum stained with a pattern of handwritten text, drawn washing symbols and textile prints.

The washhouses were historically reserved to women only. They were public spaces where men were not allowed and women would meet weekly to wash the laundry. It was a space where women exchanged information and spoke freely amongst each other. The work was hard due to the bent position, cold and humidity. In the washhouses, intimacy was exposed to everyone who could interpret textile quality, stains, mendings, smells and patches. The laundry was a testimony of the organization of one’s household and social differences. The washhouses witnessed the women’s hands, washing and cleaning the traces from their most intimate domestic stories.

I want to make a monument bringing together oral collective stories, ephemeral traces and actions. In a preparatory phase to the making of the sculpture, I will organize workshops / group conversations between women from different generations from Differdange. Key subjects are safe spaces, informal knowledge, collective work, intimacy and care work.

Transcriptions of these conversations will be written on the lableformed sculptures amongst the drawings and prints. I will form a patchwork of overlapping stories throughout time in Differdange that functions as a form of representation of silenced voices and empowerment. The sculptures relocate intimacy and domesticity into the public space and thus attempts to radicalize and reclaim it. In so doing, the body is positioned as a carrier of memory and as a powerful site for knowledge production and transition.