Sewing Ritual     

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By Anat Michaelis-Levy and Gabrielle Neuhaus

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Excerpt duration: 5:09 minutes, full piece duration: 21 hours.

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Documentation of a site specific, time-based performance at the
Israeli Contemporary Art Fair 2004, 
Reading Power Station, Tel Aviv, October 3-5, 2004.

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Text, thread, sewing machine, dance, exhibits in space, are recurrent elements in Michaelis-Levy and Neuhaus' performances.  

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In Sewing Ritual, Neuhaus sat at the sewing machine for seven hours a day during the three days of the event and sewed 5040 drawings and printed cards to each other.

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They formed one long chain twirling 15 meters down into the power station pit. Innumerable people came to talk to the performer during the three days of the event, to ask questions and interpret the event.

 

The performance raised reflections about women's work, the Holocaust, the absurd and the philosophical aspects of the printed text – "I wish you a good night. I hope the tower clock won't bother you, because the long hand clicks every minute." (P. Handke)

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"… this endless tail can be seen from downstairs, its origin still invisible. Only here, when one reaches the very end of the exhibition, does one understand that this long train comes from a little sewing machine with which one woman decided to undertake a long-lasting repetitive ritual, creating its own inner logic by its making." - Ruti Direktor, event curator

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