NO PLACE LIKE AMERICA

The title of the work quotes the children story ‘Amerika gibt es nicht” by Swiss author Peter Bichsel. The work consists of documentary video portraits of young men. These clips are projected onto an uneven ‚screen‘ of stacked consumer-goods cardboard boxes. The portraits were made in Pakistan and India and show men who want to emigrate to the West. They describe their ideas of living in America. As a listener one senses the frustration of the men who have failed to emigrate in their previous attempts. It also becomes clear that their society offers them no way out of their situation. The work is often shown in adjoining rooms to official exhibition galleries, e.g. in the basement of a gallery, or in a stairwell.