M HKA Ensembles

Happening, 72 x 62 cm.

Collection: Collection M HKA (Inv. no. BK009496).

Reinecke tried to provoke a collective learning process through her work. She kept track of visitors' reactions to exhibited works and drew conclusions for further work. The search for an impetus for (collective) ‘behavioural change’ led Reinecke to her first action, Umgebungskleider or ‘environment clothing’: dresses made of transparent plastic on which Reinecke or the audience wrote the names of things that surrounded the viewer, such as stones, walls, buildings, etc. This would enable the spectator/participant to feel more united with their environment and to question their position in the world.

In Umgebungskleider, collective (or participatory) action and creation, which has its basis in left-wing ideologies, is considered an open, creative process. It renounces the bourgeois notion of genius, but is not yet tied to a concrete, political commitment.