(DVD, 21,5 min) 2006
It seems to me that this video takes its inner qualities from the contradiction between the so-called "soap opera style" and its "docu-fiction" (possibly dramatic) content. To me, the main aspect that makes your work familiar as a soap opera is the never-ending structure implied in the lingering end of the story. Where is she going? What will happen next? In contrast to TV series, where the fiction begins and ends in every episode, this is one of the ways soap operas let people effortlessly get in and out of the story. The circular structure allows the viewer to stop seeing the soap for two days, or two months, or two years, and still jump back into a somehow familiar environment. But what if you give to this light, narrative structure a content which is heavy as a stone and furthermore taken from reality - by interviewing victims of human trafficking and by weaving all their stories together? I believe that this is the destabilizing quality of a visual work of art. There is nothing to learn, nothing to explain, it is direct. It is silly to expect your video to become a manual on human trafficking and sexual exploitation, or to question the story (does the Russian woman know she is going to work as a sex worker when she starts her trip?), and more profitable to see it as an attempt to show how visual languages operate in our understanding of reality. Even if (as I imagine) you were deeply involved in the "research" stage when you were interviewing the women, the final outcome manages to leave the view open without relying on a didactic approach. I had a similar experience with "Memorial," where I began with an emotional approach, but then progressively distanced myself from it.
Cristiano Berti (Catalogue Artist-Citizen. Contextual Art Practice, Belgrad 2008)
Over recent years the language of social documentation has increasingly become a focus of interest in the context of art – not least in connection with postcolonial studies. It was this ›trend‹ towards a more documentary approach that was to lead to an examination of presentational strategies and genre hybridization as well as their position within the art system. How should the people portrayed be contextualized? Which ethical and ethnographic motives underlie the documentation? Is it in fact possible to show a ›faithful‹ responsibility towards the people depicted?
Her latest film, Meine besten Wünsche für den gefallenen Engel, again deals with the relationship between the methods of the documentary and the reality it seeks to present – clients who prefer to remain anonymous. The script was developed from conversations with clients and sex workers and tells the story of the Russian prostitute Diana (Anna Zhara) taken to Germany by a pimp (Aleksey Nesterov). This narrative based on ›real stories‹ tells of the mutual dependence that develops between Diana and a client who falls in love with her, Hannes (Andreas Rüdiger), and is told in the style of a soap opera.
Elena Zanichelli (Katalog: Sexwork. Kunst Mythos Realität, 2006)
