Author: jelenapavlovic

Zurich / cages

The promised city, dipped in an admirable countenance,

Where gold is hidden behind gracious walls,

and strangers pilger in hope to find it

Aflamed by the idea of an carefree existence,

an existence based on the shine of gold

To reach it, demands a prize so high, noone could ever know

The reward served on a golden plate

in shape of a blazing blindness,

makes us believe to have found the answer

to all our oppressive problems

Fresh bruises seem to disappear on our used up wrists

But the sharp pain stays and drifts through the sizzling surface

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.

cages / 3. assignment

my concept
my concept

Reflecting locations and their cages. Where can we find cages in these two cities/ societies? Where are the similarities and differences from one an other? Maybe my partner and I should focus on a specific cage, which is still not defined. We could also start rebuilding an imaginary cage, where Hong Kong and Zurich merge into one without comparing them.

The subject that I found the most interesting is that if we are present or absent in the cage and if we are on the way to enter or exit it.

The topic is very open and I would love to work it out together with my partner. The way to get to the topic would be through brainstorming and making a concept together. The project could be a mixture of video, photography and text.

This is just a spontaneous draft of mine. It is related to the main topic, but not necessarily to the subtopic my partner I will be working on. I can’t decide that on my own.

Cages:

I can’t breathe, even though the air is perfectly clean.

I feel  poor, even though money is reachable and here.

For one reason I see people not as people anymore, more like robots,

wake up, eat breakfast, shit, work, social media, eat lunch, work, eat dinner, watch TV,  social media, read a book, might fuck if they are lucky enough and then go to sleep and do it all over again.

The overly polite attitude is our weapon, even though we often think differently, but it’s easier to be polite then to say fuck you in your face.

Meeting up with other people must be scheduled three weeks in advance, otherwise we can’t. Our schedule becomes our best friend, because it says what we have to do and when we have to do it. We always know what’s gonna happen next and surprises are very rare, with life itself as just an image of how we think life works.

Spontaneity is dead and we don’t even care.

We don’t even care if we’re living in a cage, because it’s a comfortable one. Every move we make is already turned into automatism. When we look around, we see everyone does the same, so we adapt, we become to an image of how a person in society works. We’re mostly not ourselves, we just like hiding behind the barrels of our cages.

 

 

MY IMAGINARY HONG KONG

Seven and eight years ago I visited Paris and London for the first time in my life.

In Paris I saw a Chinese New Year’s Parade. To me, it was  fascinating. Their complex costumes, dragon kites and the pride they took in their tradition really touched me. While watching the parade, I felt like slipping into another world, which resembles a fairytale where people are gracious, wear bewitched costumes and unusual, but beautiful, makeup.

My first trip to London was dominated by one area called China Town. My mom and I were so fascinated by all the things we saw there. Stores with ducks hanging in front of the windows, Hello Kitty candy everywhere, which was rare to find in Switzerland, hairdressers doing only special Chinese haircuts, apples so red and shiny, how we’ve never seen them before, food so healthy and tasty, no matter how much we were eating of it, we never felt sick or tired of it and in the whole of China Town we were surrounded my Chinese lanterns.

That was my first real encounter with Chinese culture.

 

My Hong Kong Poem:

I imagine Hong Kong like a city where modernity and tradition meet.

Maybe like New York, a City which never sleeps.

Water is little and rice is rich

People are rushing, no one sits

 

Street lights follow  wherever you go

A pulsating vibe surrounds you and you feel the glow

Healthiness which brings the tradition is an invisible law

People scared wearing masks to protect it all