Installation view, 162 von 172 Häusern stehen an der Hauptstraße…,
Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig, 2005


The project in its different versions is based on research in Warsaw, Poland: in particular, a series of interviews with representatives from construction and security companies and former and current inhabitants of gated communities. Living in a private, protected estate is becoming an increasingly popular way of life in the post-socialist city, and since the introduction of capitalism, and increasingly since the late nineties, such non-public areas are consuming more and more urban space.
The installation version contains a double slide projection and a video projection. The images in the slide projection are black and white photographs from gated communities in Warsaw. The text slides contain a number of partly fictional dialogues between artist, curator, and the interviewees. The video projection shows a snowy landscape on the periphery of the city with a gated settlement on the horizon, while a male voice reads excerpts from a Norwegian fairytale with the title “The Golden Castle that Hung in the Air”. The voice describes the attempts by the male main character of the fairytale to get into three different golden castles by conning his way past the dragons, snakes, and wild animals who serve as the castles’ guards. The photographic version of the piece contains the dialogues from the slide projection and a selection of the photographs redrawn in a reduced black and white presentation.


2 slide projections, 162 B/W slides (English / Polish): approx. 16 min.
Video : approx. 13 min. (Polish / English)

32 lambda prints (German / Polish)
each 70 x 50 cm

Artist Book: The Golden Castle that Hung in the Air
24 pp.
Published by CSW Zamek Ujazdowski + raster, 2005
Voice: Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz
Audio editing: Andrzej Gladki

Translation:
Borys Pugacz-Muraszkiewicz, Helena Chmielewska-Szlajfer, Ula Siemion, Patti Maciesz, Barbara Zorman, Emily Lemon