A strange bridge between places …
An escort in the sense of guiding an other often finds him/herself in between places, a clarified position of courtesy. It is with this thought in mind that I approached the Israeli artist Omer Krieger with the idea of collaborating in a minor public intervention. A week of back and forth emails allowed the ideas to take form, and so convinced of myself, I welcomed his presence at the airport.
Travel Journey 1
Terminal 2 – arrivals – Zurich Flughafen time 19:30. Groups of people, various cultures and then with a smile a tall man with an equally pleasant lady greeted me, it was Omer and his girlfriend. Me: slightly overdressed, looked like a drag queen on parade night. “Escort” the man and his woman to their apartment, walking down the Militärstrasse, my soul was filled with excitement.
Travel Journey 2
The following afternoon Omer presented a workshop on the concept of public movement. We sat down in a group of 4 discussing how one could engage in such a project. Ideas fill the gap and soon the empty space between us was filled with emotions. The topic… discrimination against Germans in Switzerland. Omer, intrigued, yet slightly disconnected, digested the rivers of information that came across his path. The meeting appeared to be fruitful, however not sufficiently substantial to interest of Omer, until the word Bomb shelter crawled into the war zone.
Travel Journey 3
The next day an SMS sprung my way that said:
“Hi Alfred, Omer here, would you like to meet?”
Four hours later I had the following assignment to complete…
FIND
1 Mayor of Zürich
A Bomb Shelter
20 Immigrants …
Travel Journey 4
A session meeting on the Monday morning, shed light on the impossible assignment of finding the above … tragically we departed from the idea and went in search of new ideas …
The word—was—Research
the Objectives—Zurich Stadtrat—
Gemeinderat—and the idea of „A State Artist“
we smelled the pork roasting—
Travel Journey 5
We decided to go to the holy place of the Gemeinderat. Unfortunately we were kicked out and told it was closed to the public and that we could only join Wednesday evenings if we wanted to listen to the public sessions … as we departed the statue of Gottfried Keller greeted us with these words:
„Lass unser Vaterland niemals im Streit um das Brot,
geschweige denn im Streit um Vorteil und Überfluss
untergehen.“
and so we knew what we had to do in the name of the StadtSchreiber …
Travel Journey 6
After bombarding the Stadthaus attendants with questions about our problems, it was in a lift that we stumbled across a pretty young lady, that eagerly awaited helping us … supporting and guiding, we found our way to the office of the “StadtSchreiber” and a meeting was arranged.
Travel Journey 7
The holy moment arrived and we sat down for 15 minutes with the honorable Dr. Claudia Cuche-Curti and so the questioning began.
Do you think the Stadtschreiber has an artistic element to his/her job?
answer: NO
Do you see any place for artists in the parliament?
answer: NO
Do you think artists can be functional as politicians?
answer: NO, maybe in America where they are sometimes actors …
SCARED! DISAPPOINTED AND SLIGHTLY FRIGHTENED, WE LEFT THE MEETING!!! It was clear: “Artists had no place in the parliament,” such words uttered the grey Fat lady …
We left … failure?
Over salad and Ciabatta at the city lounge, Omer uttered in a reflective discussion to our meeting the famous sentence that came to haunt my conscience the past few hours …
“Art is not democratic, but democracy needs art.”
Gast: Omer Krieger
Tat und Text: Alfred Vorster
MitstreiterInnen: Katrin Kolo, Dominik Fornezzi
reART:theURBAN „City link“