Mater Mea
Mater Mea (fragment 0:30)
2007
video installation
video dimensions variable
8:30, sound
The film Mater Mea is based on two components: a film on laundry hanging in the streets of overcrowded large cities in China and processional music. The music Mater Mea, composed by the Spanish composer Ricardo Dorado Janeiro in 1962, is performed by the oldest brass band of Southern Netherlands.
Typical of processional music is that the tempo is much lower than normal marching music and the character is static but not sad, rather lyrical and devotional.
Laundry, as the protagonist, indirectly refers to people and also to the person who looks after things, takes care of everything, the mother. The laundry outside, waving in the wind of the polluted environment, the invisible act of cleaning and washing together with the processional music makes reference to rituals. Here, the repetition of reproductive labor and care is placed in dialogue with the rhythm of processional scores that are repeated through tradition, provoking key questions about labor, urban space, and notions of tradition over time.
This work deals with the combination of elements from different cultures to search for common qualities.

Mater Mea at the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, City Garden Video Installation, 2009.