Deep conversations about love and politics.

Over the course of this project, I have spoken to friends, roommates and fellow students about how they feel represented by our system and our politicians. Now it is high time to have voters represented on this blog. The Züri Fäscht takes place every three years. Equipped with a microphone and a camera, I joined the crowd to celebrate, and to ask a couple of questions about politics.

Because for most people, politics has nothing to do with leisure time and fun (and I did not want to ruin their Züri Fäscht), this was a good opportunity to test out my ideas on using a different tone when starting political discussions. Instead of problems, complexity and frustration, our conversations revolved around: a whole lot of love.

By the end of the day, we (Damiano Boppart behind the camera and me behind the microphone) had nine interviews. Our questions were quite different from what you would expect from a “political” interview. Very different.

Politicians of your dreams: Questions for visitors of the Züri Fäscht.

  1. If you had the opportunity to go on a romantical candle light dinner with the politician of your dreams, what kind of person would that have to be to really knock you off your feet?
  2. Now 800 people want to go on this date with you, and you have 4 options to choose the best ones:
    1. You let them fight each other
    2. They have to compose a song for you
    3. They have to build you a work of art
    4. They have to defend you with all their heart and soul
  3. Now, if you could publish a partner announcement to find these politicians, what would that sound like?

Alright. And what are these questions really about?

Most of all, I just wanted to have a good time while talking to these people. My goal is to show that “political” conversations don’t always have to be super sincere and loaded with negative emotions.

The romantic theme of this survey serves to illustrate that one can choose politicians according to one’s own wishes. In real life, this will not concern candle light dinners (most of the time), but it is quite different to “you have to vote”.

You can vote. Because it serves you.

Besides the humorous type of questions, people let shine through what they thought about politics (fair enough, sometimes their alcohol level played a substantial part) – and that happened without pushing them, limiting them with “forbidden” answers or wrong opinions. That’s what it’s about.

In any case, these street interviews were a funny little experiment which I enjoyed a lot. Maybe I will do more things like this. That also depends on the feedback this video will get.

The video is in Swiss German, but there are English and German captions. Enjoy!

Finding the politician of your dreams is not an easy task. Luckily, we are here to help!