Jean-Christophe Ammann   2002 

Harem – Merah

(Meranthium – “inflorescence consisting of several individual blooms with a uniform appearance”)

“Because something once more is
that was
is
what goes
is gone
remaining
wilting
without heeding
the signs
the marking
the units
bright dark
the raised hand
breath held
the small one swiftly runs
unconditionally
the large one brings about
the circles
reaches
touches
transgresses
the bases the rounds
unnoticed
leaves behind
starts
goes beyond
goes around
now
is deepest past.“

The deepest past of which Doris Ringe speaks is the present: the inexorable presence of the past. (1)

Heather Allen’s world resembles an ‘upside-down harem’. The women are alone unto themselves. Since the prince is always away travelling and the eunuchs as the strict guardians of the harem have long since died out, the women have resolved to busy themselves with their own affairs. The prince has a strange preference: all the women look the same. They all have the ‘Mary Long’ hair cut from the 1950s – (even if it admittedly dates back to pre-War days). Slender their bodies are not, but also not plump. They are stocky, as it were, and possess a natural but not explicit eroticism. The women are naked or wear tight track suits and what distinguishes them from one another is the facial expression and body language.

Heather Allen’s women are all about 18cm high, made of modelling material. Since they all look identical, the difference is all the more a matter of gesture. Herein lies a special quality. Another is the fact, and this is particularly noticeable in works with groups of women, that communicative interaction plays a decisive role.

At first sight, the women are standing, sitting and lying around. Only on closer inspection does it become apparent that the groups dynamically inter-relate. They are doing something together, are of one and of different opinions. They go their own way and yet (potentially) find the right route back.

Heather Allen presents us with a true feat: she successfully produces communicative action down to the finest detail from situation-specific movements and gestures – be it a matter of one, two or three women, or even of an entire group. The more you move within this group, the more you become, as if sucked by an undertow, a part of its larger or smaller groups, even though you cannot fully understand the context of the action.

Another feat Allen achieves is that the work avoids the anecdotal. For the intuitively coordinated actions, starting with the gestures, do not add up to form a discernible meaning. In other words: the meaning is left open. Something happens, but what happens may go one way or the other, may dissolve. It is as if the group dynamics along with the solitary individuals need to be understood as a process of self-identification within the collective setting, as a transfer of that identification of self into the collective setting.

It eventually becomes clear why the prince is always away on his travels. The harem has long since grown beyond him. The harem has become the independent agent of his own consciousness: contemplating, conversing, resting, considering, gesticulating, questioning its own existence, amazed, waiting, appraising (each other), but always from that distance which precludes one having the advantage.

The harem is a horde of individuals who have congregated together. Should the prince visit his harem once again he will have a request to make:

“Everywhere I go and nowhere am I
should you have met me at some time
please do not leave me nameless.”(2)

The women will not deny him this request, as in the final analysis they show understanding for the loneliness of men.


1) Doris Runge, trittfeste schatten, (Stuttgart & Munich, 2000), p. 17
(2) Ali Podrimja, Das Laecheln im Kaefig, (Klagenfurt & Salzburg, 1993), p. 115

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