stills from super 8 footage filming 'home' - in beacon and in new york.
migrating between a (art) and r (research)
in my current art practice i find myself mentally migrating back to nuremberg quite frequently to anticipate the process and reactions of collaborators as well as other participants in flüstergewürz. the painter judith tucker’s discussion of the concept of home and sigmund freud’s explanation of the uncanny, the un-homely (unheimlich), resonate insofar as my own concernment with the concept of home has been dissolved somewhere along my migratory paths. i truly do not feel “at home” anywhere, but i also do not miss the sense of belonging to a geographically determined location. i am quite comfortable with the idea of establishing my own narrative, whether associated with germany, the u.s., or the migratory activity in between. i give credit for this sentiment to the contemporary situation to attain permission to travel freely whenever and wherever one desires. this is a fortunate circumstance, and i am always astonished to witness travelers ending up stranded for hours, sometimes days, in an airport, caused by a weather-related delay. the sense of entitlement of the contemporary traveler related to the certainty to migrate freely takes the relative ease and comfort of modern travel for granted.
i don't consider my artistic process as an attempt to establish a sense of home for myself, but i realize that connecting with familiar and unfamiliar people in nuremberg possesses some kind of therapeutical bearing for me. in this sense, the aesthetic and psychological impact of my project on its witnesses (including myself) could be considered as an internal migration between safety and uncertainty, between the heimisch (domestic) and the unheimlich.
examining germany as the place of my origin and relating its idiosyncrasies to my voluntary migration is taking on a significant role in my art practice.
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