Karen and Jelena’s statement

REFLECTING LOCATIONS: Team Karen and Jelena

The topic of Karen and my work is going to be cages  in our two different cities / societies. It’s going to be a collaboration, where both of us will document cages and try to combine them in a video installation work at the end. These cages can include physical and mental cages. During this process, our aim is to get to the bottom of this subject and try to crystallize the main topic out for us.

For Karen and me, the cage is an interesting symbol because it surrounds, or one could also say, imprisons  somebody / something by putting boundaries in between. There is a difference between the state / reality in the cage and outside the cage.

We are both aware that this is a massive topic, but we believe that we still need time to explore, figure out and process it. We will define a different stage of progression and aims each week. The aim for the end-stage is to compare the different material and conclusions we’ve made during this process and get to a common denominator. One part of the work will also include interviews with people which we will record or write down. Our exchange of ideas and material will be over Skype. It’s very important for us to communicate as much as possible, not only about our main topic, but also to get to know each other and figure  out where our ways could lead us in this project. We also want to achieve a certain kind of comprehension of how the other  person understands cages.

Here an example:

THE GOLDEN CAGE

Karen’s explanation

Golden cage in my explanation means you are framed in a beautiful place and you can look outside and do a lot of things inside the place, but you can’t go outside or escape. It is because you are just caging in that place. The golden cage should be framed the rich men.

Jelena’s explanation

For me a golden cage is when a person is surrounded by materialistic things. In this materialistic point of view, he/she has everything and seems perfectly happy. So the priorities are focused on materialism, but one’s missing the real needs in life, which money can’t afford. These things are outside the cage and need a lot of emotional, mental effort to get.

Maybe someone living in a golden cage mistakes materialism, with the real needs in life and feels, for a certain moment, a kind of fulfillment, which disappears as quickly as a breeze. In my imagination, the person living in the golden cage gets a sort of awareness at some point and realizes to be kept in a golden cage by his own wish.

In the attachment you will see some of the things Karen and I already shared with each other and also how our Skype meetings look like.