To Serve

With their project To Serve, the choreographer Simone Aughterlony and filmmaker Jorge Leon focused on the living and working conditions of service personnel in view of the global dimension of exploitation, human rights violations and modern slavery. To Serve employs a wide variety of artistic and media-based formats (live performances, films and installations) which introduced and artistically presented the relationship between employers and servants – a relationship based on power, control and submission.
Aughterlony’s und Leon’s performance "Deserve", comprised of interviews with maids and research texts about slave trade and slavery, analyzes and reflects on our modern-day view of service. Leon’s experimental documentary film "Vous êtes servis" depicts the everyday life of Indonesian domestic servants and investigates the story of a maid in Brussels who found herself at the centre of an abuse scandal at the Conrad Hotel in 2008. The project toured through several European cities and addressed locally relevant issues at each venue.

Artistic directors: Simone Aughterlony (D/CH), Jorge Leon (B)
Participants / artists: Angelique Willkie (B), Céline Peret (B), Fiona Wright (GB), Florian Bach (CH/D), George van Dam (B), Mieke Verdin (B), Nadia Fistarol (CH), Tabea Braun, Thomas Wodianka (CH/D), Melati Suryodarmo, Olga de Soto (B), Vlatka Horvat (USA), and others