STAIRCASE + THE LAST HOUR OF THE DAY

As part of the project ~a mountain is only a slow wave~ both of these videos have been filmed in Berlin’s defunct airport Tempelhof in 2016. The airport was closed in 2008 and partially used as a refugee camp from 2015-2018.

In ‘Staircase’ (2018) I collaborate with Hael, who at the time of the video production in 2016 had been living as an asylum seeker in Tempelhof’s hangars for over nine months. When I think of Hael, I see a person who continues to adapt with grace, strength and vulnerability to an impossible challenge. To me, he is a role model for the human capacity of resilience and the possibility to remain compassionate in the face of cruelty.

In ‘The Last Hour of the Day’ (2022) migrants are crossing Tempelhof’s airfield to gather for Iftar - the evening meal with which Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset. The video was shot over one continuous hour and later separated into single minutes and rearranged in a grid. Shown as a loop, we see the sun setting and rising while the people keep moving in perpetual motion.