Fundamental Cleaning

"Cleaning" is a performance series that reflects on the topic of memory culture and the (re)contextualisation of the monuments related to communism in the public space.

The series started with the "Spring Cleaning" performance in 2020.

A performer in the costume of a city cleaner climbs on the Victory Monument on Soborna Square in Chernivtsi in order to wash a bronze sculpture of a Soviet soldier. But the performer can only wash the soldier’s feet – she simply can not reach higher. Washing the soldier’s feet is a subversive gesture on the verge of absurdity and deep biblical acceptance of everything as it is.

Images of holy war and great victory are pillars of Soviet ideology that we do not dare abandon. Even the law "On Condemnation of Communist and National Socialist Totalitarian Regimes in Ukraine and Prohibition of Propaganda of Their Symbols", adopted in 2015, shrines the "inviolability" of the theme of World War II. While destroying some monuments of the ideology that no longer exists, we do not dare to touch the monument of Victory, we do not try to rethink or reinvent it. In this case, the process of decommunization is more like throwing between the sharp and situational destruction of memory artefacts of the soviet period, and the Stockholm syndrome, unwillingness to delve into rethinking the complex issues, dark, yet concealed spots of the history. The institutional position in representation of collective memory of World War II is quite vague and unclear, as there’s almost no institutional work on rethinking the particular monuments in the regions. Covering this issue in a performative way aims to open up the discussion at all possible levels.

“Spring Cleaning” idea was translated into a series of performances (“Fundamental Cleaning”, “Cleaning the Meaning”) that are referring to soviet era monuments in Kyiv and Berlin.

In the second performance, "Fundamental Cleaning" , held in Kyiv, the performer washes the vandal-marked pedestal of the Lenin monument, on which the trident, the small coat of arms of Ukraine, proudly stands now. Thus, the question appears – on which foundation are we building our "new" society?

The third performance, "Cleaning the Meaning", held in Berlin, reflects on the role of Ernst Thälmann, former leader of the Communist Party of Germany, in the communist myth-building during GDR times.