CANADA 2018, 33 MIN.
SINGLE-CHANNEL HD VIDEO, STEREO SOUND
Not a Drop presents 11 individuals in the act of dish doing. The audio consists of the participants divulging stories of conflict with family members, lovers, and roommates surrounding this ordinary chore. They share their processes, relationship to water, and how some of their methods have changed through criticism they received regarding water usage. This task is at times frustrating and tedious while at others it can be calming and meditative. Anxieties and tensions are revealed as well as the potential for a moment of respite in one’s day. Movement patterns emerge and gracefully flow through the practice of this personal activity. Not a Drop is a study of gesture, focusing on a necessary, banal activity.
The video is projected onto a wall above a kitchenette: a countertop of stacked dishes, soap, a sponge, and a dripping faucet. The 3×4 grid video shows 11 individuals completing the washing of a single sinkful of dishes. Each video clip is uncut. The bottom right corner contains a sinkful of dishes that are not being washed. In this clip water runs for the entire duration of the video. Once all the other participants have finished their tasks and disappeared, this one tile remains for a moment before the video loops again.
Housework is a form of labour that is almost inevitably invisible. In capturing people doing their own dishes, a document has been created of this very ordinary and mostly private activity.
Performers Fernando Belote, Omar Elhamy, Peggy Hogan, Stacy Lee, Dorothee Nowak, Keith Odell, Kevin Jung-Hoo Park, Chantale Potie, Alan Reed, Aleks Schürmer, Adam Tadros
