CLEANING IN PROGRESS

Lecture performance with analog slide show, 2010 onward

“For me, the objects which surround us testify to social relationships,” asserts Jo. During a 2010 trip to China, Jo was struck by how omnipresent the simple mop was in the public space. As he focused his attentions on these objects, he came to realize that their conspicuousness by doors or entranceways was intentional. They were, he came to understand, a signal or symbol of the cleanliness of this space, cleanliness being a quality often lacking in urban Chinese life.

While photographing these mops, Jo became fascinated by their incredible variety. Typically the mops he found had been woven together by hand using old rags, and then displayed in the most unconsciously creative ways.

Jo offers: “In their vibrant colours and the different materials used in making them, these mops came to represent to me the primary aesthetic of everyday life in China, an approach which is increasingly threatened by the monotony of industrial mass production.”

In their undisputed banality, the mops documented in this project stand in juxtaposition to China’s status as an up-and-coming high-tech power and the world’s largest consumer market. One result of the opening of this market and its integration in to the globalized world economy is that specific cultural characteristics are being erased and standardized, an observation reflected in the double-meaning of the project’s title CLEANING IN PROGRESS.



Cleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, Foto Jo ZarthCleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, Foto Jo ZarthCleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, Foto Jo ZarthCleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, Foto Jo ZarthCleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, Foto Jo Zarth

Linie
SOME MAGAZINE No. 1, ISBN 978-3-86019-081-4Cleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, Some Magazine, Burg Giebichenstein

Linie
Freitag, Nr. 22, 2011
Cleaning in Progress, Wischmop in China, der freitag