MY PERSONAL CONSTRUCTION SITE

2023 / 2025

Life as a construction site - a place of becoming, discarding and rebuilding.

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In the performance MY PERSONAL CONSTRUCTION SITE, I focus on the body, beauty, failure and the constant reinvention of oneself. It is about the traces we leave behind and the pressure to conform to certain norms - a performative commentary on self-optimization in a visually dominated society.

I enter the room in a festive, glittering sequin dress, carrying a 4.5 kg lump of clay, a small saw, four pink wooden skewers, a Barbie with a beauty roller in her cleavage and a yellow plastic ribbon around her neck. In a few simple steps, a symbolic construction site is created from the raw clay - marked with skewers and barrier tape, smoothed out with the beauty roller as if it were a face.

I press Barbie's face into the clay surface - an imprint remains. Then I saw off her arms. A physically and emotionally upsetting act. I stick the arms into the clay - they stick out like a silent cry for help. Finally, I place the Barbie in front of the building site. Armless and speechless. The production stays behind - I leave.

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MY PERSONAL CONSTRUCTION SITE was first shown at Galerie 6 in Aarau in 2023 and again in 2025 as part of "Goldrausch - ERFOLG?!", an interim use at Untere Zäune 3 in Zurich.

Kunstbulletin wrote in its online edition of March 2025:

"Barbara Hennig Marques' performance raises many questions about ourselves and our society in relation to beauty and conforming to beauty norms in order to be, or at least appear to be, successful."

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