One of the most complex and yet unrealized projects of mine is “Dederon – The Fabric of the East” (2003-present), which literally uses the (polyester) thread named after the DDR (engl.: G.D.R.) to trace the initially noble and ambitious project of establishing “socialism on German soil”, with particular emphasis on materialism at the intersection of industrial production and everyday life. Here, the synthetic fiber Dederon functions as a metaphor for the categorical Modernist belief in progress and how it defined the social, political, economical and cultural fabric of East Germany before and after 1989. Besides my own photographs (etcetera), I have collected information and visual material from a diverse number of found sources over the years, including film, texts, fiber and fabric samples, posters, advertisements and brochures, with the intent to weave together an installation-collage that presents a critical and somewhat epistemological account of life lived in the “real-existierenden Sozialismus”. Two films, “The Divided Heaven” (Christa Wolf and Konrad Wolf, 1964) and “Good-bye Lenin” (Wolfgang Becker, 2003) represented by screenshots, will function as the conceptual ‘bookends’ in which the two main female film characters miss the construction and dismantling, respectively, of the Berlin Wall while hospitalized due to a state of unconsciousness. In between these two place-and-time holders, “Dederon – The Fabric of the East” will explore issues of production, fashion, gender and representation, political belief systems and ideology, the public and private, memory and melancholia. It is meant as a look back at the successes and failures of the 20th Century’s socialist projects as well as a proposal for rescuing its best ideas and implementations for a future beyond our current and crisis-ridden capitalism. Thus, I seek to reinsert a consideration of future into a world that seems increasingly preoccupied with the present only. But perhaps the unrealized nature of this project of mine is also indicative of the utopian nature of such a progressive alternative? We shall see ...
One of the most complex and yet unrealized projects of mine is “Dederon – The Fabric of the East” (2003-present), which literally uses the (polyester) thread named after the DDR (engl.: G.D.R.) to trace the initially noble and ambitious project of establishing “socialism on German soil”, with particular emphasis on materialism at the intersection of industrial production and everyday life. Here, the synthetic fiber Dederon functions as a metaphor for the categorical Modernist belief in progress and how it defined the social, political, economical and cultural fabric of East Germany before and after 1989. Besides my own photographs (etcetera), I have collected information and visual material from a diverse number of found sources over the years, including film, texts, fiber and fabric samples, posters, advertisements and brochures, with the intent to weave together an installation-collage that presents a critical and somewhat epistemological account of life lived in the “real-existierenden Sozialismus”. Two films, “The Divided Heaven” (Christa Wolf and Konrad Wolf, 1964) and “Good-bye Lenin” (Wolfgang Becker, 2003) represented by screenshots, will function as the conceptual ‘bookends’ in which the two main female film characters miss the construction and dismantling, respectively, of the Berlin Wall while hospitalized due to a state of unconsciousness. In between these two place-and-time holders, “Dederon – The Fabric of the East” will explore issues of production, fashion, gender and representation, political belief systems and ideology, the public and private, memory and melancholia. It is meant as a look back at the successes and failures of the 20th Century’s socialist projects as well as a proposal for rescuing its best ideas and implementations for a future beyond our current and crisis-ridden capitalism. Thus, I seek to reinsert a consideration of future into a world that seems increasingly preoccupied with the present only. But perhaps the unrealized nature of this project of mine is also indicative of the utopian nature of such a progressive alternative? We shall see ...