Container, 2010
Video double screen, 18:42 min., loop
During one and a half year I worked with the community of Kiezhaus Container in Marzahn.
During the same period, the Council of the District of Marzahn made decision to close the Kiezhaus Container by the end of 2008.
This place was for many years a meeting point and a second home for a large group of neighbourhood residents. Container offered them various activities: courses in ceramics, textile, painting, cooking for women; free access to a metal and wood workshop regularly attended by local teenagers. Most of the participants in its activities had foreign backgrounds, others were Germans searching for a point of reference in their daily life or children coming from families with complicated social backgrounds.
This double projection shows reverse processes: the first one depicts fully functioning rooms in Container, while the second shows the empty spaces after the Kiezhaus was closed down. The circular movement of the camera makes the image of ‘full’ spaces appear to be erased by ‘empty’ rooms so that after awhile the ‘full’ rooms become empty and ‘empty’ ones again become filled with objects and life. In the third part of the video, the empty spaces are once again filled with life. My intention was to show the continuity and power of this community of women who do not disperse after losing their house, but find a new ‘Container’ to reborn and move ahead.
Transparent Rooms Exhibition
Backstage
Workshops
Karaoke
Landing in Dreamland
Wishes are flying up to the stars
