project image
Patrick Porter
I POISONED THE CAMPUS WATER

first performed on November 17, 2016
Pratt Institute Campus, Brooklyn, NY
performed once in 2016

KAROLINA KUBIK

Poznan, Poland / Brooklyn, NY
karolinakubik@yahoo.com
cargocollective.com/karolinakubik

I POISONED THE CAMPUS WATER
KAROLINA KUBIK

This was the first in a series of performances entitled I Poisoned The Campus Water I, II, & III, which was part of a larger body of work called These Are Not My People, I Never Should Have Come Here.

I found a mattress on the street and took it to an outdoor corner of campus, to a space behind several buildings that draws little foot traffic. I put the mattress on an elevated slab of concrete. I stuck a wooden pole into an open pipe mouth beside the concrete slab. I stood on the bed in a white formal dress and high heels and screamed, “this crazy Polish bitch poisoned the campus water!” over and over again as passing students watched me.

Social/political function: 

Water systems are a subject of social national trust. My approach was to consider water as a product and transformational object.

Body as site: 

Body as a water container, made of water. Internal experience relates with external as there is no life without water. 

Various discourses I consider within the work:

*landscape and colonialism (drinking water)

*North Dakota Oil Pipeline Battle/indigenous peoples

*poisoned water crisis in Flint (Ref. to Michael Moore)

*terrorism

*epidemiology/biology/health and safety

*health insurance in US

*ecology of the city/mental landscape

*private sector of education/education as business

*community life; taboos within university/campus life