Taking the city of Besançon, France, the performance venue (ISBA, architect Josep Lluís Sert) and its surroundings as a reference, the video reflects on the current socio-political crisis in Russia and the experience of being in exile and in-between states of a younger post-socialist generation, as well as artistic collaboration and the interdependance of personal biography and collective cultural memory. Pieces of biographical and collective cultural memory, search for the new social visions and adventurous discovery of the new shores echo through the piece.

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In the series we use film, performance and site-specific, research-based documentary approach as a medium to reflect on the socio-political crisis and its meaning from different personal and cultural perspectives in Eastern, Southern and Western Europe, and are daydreaming a merged reality, where our respective cultural backgrounds meet with the very place we are crossing.

Each video is shot as an unrehearsed live performance, with one take and no post-production, except for subtitles. Following a research about the local area, we prepare scripts, which contain directing instructions; real and imaginary (film) scenes; as well as personal thoughts, associations and memories – images that refer to the distant place(s) the person speaking comes from and build up a connection to the immediate surrounding & the time present.

Communicating through physical distance, we are blindly dependent on each other: one person reciting the script; the other filming images in real time. As we use both audio and video separately – but at the same time – in the resulting video takes place a double exposition of realities, which contradict and complement each other: the immediate physical reality of an unknown city and the inner reality of the speaking person that they see in front of their inner eye.

Part of the NETTING THE WORK project curated by Eva Giannakopoulou and Rilène Markopoulou in context of the Excentricités VI Festival in Besançon, France