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“Where do we migrate to” Julika Rudelius The sequences from “Where do we migrate to?” by the artist Julika Rudelius show how people lead an ordered existence, and how it is maintained. A man tries to catch a frog, a custodian of the law stands on the side of the street, a bus driver cleans his bus, a woman does the weeding half naked, or a girl removes grass from between cobble stones using a Bunsen burner. “Where do we migrate to?” is a collection of gestures and acts taken from the flow of performance that has become automatic. Focusing on moments such as these, the video condenses to a portrait of a constructed and, at the same time, threatened life. “Where do we migrate to?” describes an country of immigration that is not sure of itself: no-one seems to know where the journey is heading and it remains caught up in small gestures. Julika Rudelius filmed the sequences of the video during several stays in Germany. She herself has long lived in Amsterdam. Unlike her earlier work, in which Rudelius re-staged observed scenes, these scenes are directly filmed and loosely sequenced to each other. It crystallizes a habit that can appear both familiar and strange to those who have grown up in Germany. This is the impression that arises when the most automatic events are suddenly brought to the center. Rudelius looks through the camera at the society that is forming before her eyes. It is not an ethnological view, since the camera occasionally makes contact with those shown. As a picture of the times “Where do we migrate to?” becomes an allegory of a well-arranged life that is always concerned about something; less about politics or social circumstances, but more about individually selected ways of life, as part of a whole that is difficult to grasp. Artist, born and lives in Amsterdam. |
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