In the Installation “Heimatfilm” (“homeland film”) it is not the pictures that move, but the exhibition viewers. By sitting on the wheeled office chairs they are challenged to position themselves within the installation. Through a loudspeaker built into each of the chairs, a female voice speaks aloud and in whispers over a musical soundtrack, evoking either the sentimentality of a “Heimatfilm” or the eeriness of a horror film.
The spoken text fragments by the actress Fritzi Haberlandt are like inner monologues of the young woman visible in the drawings.
The installation plays with the stereotypes of the German film genre “Heimatfilm”, which following the devastation of WWII addressed a national need for harmony by portraying idyllic images of a pristine and invincible nature.
The title of the work is intended to awaken associations with this genre by the viewer, who is then both challenged and irritated. The experience opens up the space for associations with one’s own image and stories of “homeland”, drawing the fine lines between the familiar and the uncanny.
BW
Photographs: Gerhard Kassner
