Jinran Ha and Johanna Käthe Michel: Manicure Conference Modelage

2018–2020, installation of animated 3D model on touch-screen

The utopian architecture of the Manicure Conference Modelage is designed for a potential global nail artists’ conference concerning women’s labour, solidarity and biopolitics. Ha and Michel developed the work by taking into account the typical architecture of a nail salon: a manicure table for two, enabling the interaction between customer/consumer and worker while disconnecting the nail artists from each other. The artwork proposes different arrangements between nail workers and the public/customers who can physically interact with the architectural modelage via touch-screen and rearrange the architectural situation. The manicure tables in the artwork oscillate between their usual arrangement in a nail salon and a round-table discussion at a conference, referencing the summits of the historical Non-Aligned Movement established in Belgrade in 1961. Drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference in 1955, the movement pushed forward the politics and economics of solidarity between developing countries, many of which fought with legacies of colonialism and imperialism.

Co-production of the display within the Corneous Stories exhibition by the City of Women, Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, District Berlin; supported by Lenovo Slovenia.