rahelhegnauer

American Dream or 32 Steps in Tunisia - Zurich, Switzerland, 2020 (2001/2)

*deutsch*

Resumption of a work from the year 2001/02. I submitted the concept for this work (rejected) for taking part in site specific interventions in a public bath in Zurich, (Letzibad, Max Frisch‑Bath).

For the work American Dream or 32 steps in Tunisia I used five rolls of analogue film each containing 36 pictures (reduced to 32). Two colour and two b&w films.

Soon after the attacks on the world trade center had happened in New York, I was in Tunisia for three month on an artist-in-residence program.

Each film shows a sequence of a step by step approach or getting away from a deserted or an unfinished hotel complex built along the beaches near Tunis. After each step I took a picture but without using a tripod. For each building I used one film roll.

The hotels made of concrete – architectural manifestations of the western bathing industry – reveal the instable (in-)balance of the intertwined and interdependant economies of each single nation.

This work wants to recall that the notion of leisure (the bathing industry is part of it too) is an invention and a luxury of the western capitalist (post-)industrial society, which only is in function because others work for – and yet are still excluded from it.


Media:


Proposal for a possible realization of the work without requirement of any technical support: