Dagmar Radmacher

I generally work with repetitive, dogmatic processes. The process of letting slow, repetitive actions build up, or alternatively get destroyed in a similar manner are at the centre of my practice. Performative activations are an integral part of an attempt to communicate an intimacy with processes and objects. Projects are often based in everyday concerns, emotions and abstract ideas, either autobiographical or societal. Whilst I often intend to purely investigate the process, I nevertheless also produce drawings, films and textile objects. For ‘At a loss’ I experimented with a variety of inherited objects and produced some finished as well as unresolved projects. In the end I focused on two interrelated projects to show at ‘At a loss’, a performance and a film. I utilised a variety of objects to find the connections between the loss of my mother, my two cats and three miscarriages. In ‘my mothers coat’ I draw direct parallels between precious final fur clippings of my cats to the ethical challenge of inheriting my mothers fur coat. Two urns, in which my cat's ashes are kept, are visually reminiscent of breasts, in turn referring to the breast cancer that killed my mother. I wanted to return the coat to nature. The nature my mother loved most and wished to be buried in.This wish remained just that, defeated by rules and regulations and only fulfilled now, albeit just symbolically, by taking the coat to the forest and enabling this interaction with me, nature and the item of clothing. There is repetitive folding and unfolding, discovering and hiding. Care and treasure. The very domestic action of folding fabric for storage also defines much of my mothers life as a proud and capable housewife. My hands rest, fold and turn over in both ‘my mothers coat’ as well as in ‘Tschüss Mama! ich hab’ Dich lieb.’ mirroring the action my mother performed so often. When I think of my mother I inevitably think of her hand sand even when she occasionally enters my dreams, it is the hands that tell the story.