Exploring the stylish side of Zürich we visited places like the „Letten“, „Idaplatz“ and „Bullingerplatz“ to interview people about their reasons for being there, their opinions on different looks and corresponding prejudices on people around them. To our surprise it turned out that many of the interviewed people criticized their environment and didn’t openly identify themselves directly with their style nor the place. It seemed like they were just pretending to be as they were by chance.
In a further Interview the Director, Writer and Comedian Patrick Karpiczenko presented this phenomenon as something recognizable as „typically swiss“. Particularly the people of the art scene would love to live in their own little „bubble“ where they feel special and safe, ignoring the fact, that everyone else is also living in that „bubble“ of imaginary individualism. Therefore, the result is that nobody’s special anymore.
Consequently we came up with the idea of creating a fictional character, someone who could be anybody else, as special as every special person wants to be. Inspired by the famous song of Freddie Mercury we called him: „The Great Pretender“.
by Bruce Liu, Simon Dietersdorfer, Jude Liu