For the permanent exhibition Droste Welten, curated by Jenni Bohn, Katrin Mayer and Jenni Tischer developed the collaborative work Tableau Économique, which is on view at the Rüschhaus, the former home of the writer Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. The Tableau presents a diagrammatic image that explores the economic relationship between the wet nurse and weaver Maria Catharina Plettendorf and the writer and composer Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Both women lived and worked together at the Rüschhaus. Coming from different social classes, their respective forms of labour were fundamentally unequal: thanks to her class privilege, Droste was able to devote herself entirely to writing, while Plettendorf worked as a wet nurse, spinner, and weaver. The structural conditions of their lives and labour are interwoven here into a portrait of distinct forms of female productivity, expressed through spinning, weaving, and writing.
As part of the exhibition, we will contribute to the workshop An die Schriftstellerinnen (3–6 September) with an essay based on the installation Tableau Économique.
Jenni Tischer 