• Issue
  • Jul 01, 2021

Inside Burger Collection: Take Me Away

BIANCA KENNEDY, Bath the Pain Away, 2021, still from silent movie: 30 min. All images produced by the artist; courtesy the artist, unless otherwise stated.

A woman in her sixties reclines in a frothy bubble bath. This is perhaps not an odd image in itself, but in Bath the Pain Away (2021), German artist Bianca Kennedy’s current in-progress film, the woman is in a bathtub-on-wheels in a sun-drenched room, and she is not alone. Two other women are in the room with her. The three speak to each other, but silently, gesticulating as their words literally hang in the air as visible text, their gestures freezing alongside their words as the camera pans and twirls. The protagonist is a district judge, adjudicating cases while naked from her warm-water perch. Many questions arise, but the most obvious is, why is all of this taking place in a bathtub?