Montaža (montage), The Natural World
Old video tapes and a box of tailoring fabric offcuts and ephemera are the starting points for a video portrait of a man born in a country that no longer exists.
This experimental documentary explores an important, but little known and unworked piece of history — the fate of foreign workers in Germany during the Second World War — via my father's journey as a boy from the former Yugoslavia, to wartime Germany as a conscripted worker, then a post war UK — experiencing one war at its axis, and the next at a safe distance.
30 minutes
Astoria Film Festival, New York, USA. 17-18 May 2019 (shorter 13 minute version)
WEBworks, Autism Arts Festival, University of Kent, Canterbury. 26-28 April 2019
Neither Use Nor Ornament, OVADA, Osney Lane, Oxford. 30 March - 28 April 2019
NUNO project was initiated and led by artist Sonia Boué, bringing together two artist networks in a joint exhibition program in Spring 2019. Funded by Arts Council England.
‘By the spring of 1943 there were 12 million foreign workers in Germany' - my father was one of them - a conscripted worker in Germany's armaments factories. 'They amounted to 40 percent of the nation's workforce, and in some arms factories 90 percent of the workers were non-German.'
- Whiting, C. (1982) The Home Front: Germany (World War II Series), Time-Life Books, New York City.
A recorded conversation with my Dad about his experiences, formed the basis of the film. The work draws on a range of material — fragments from old VHS tapes of programmes he recorded from the TV, holiday/home videos, together with other ephemera / objects, and film created in the course of my art practice.
The audio interview was meant for transcription as a record, not for presentation. The decision to include his voice as testimony — echoing the often precarious existence of many migrant workers today, also brought other important elements to light. Embedded in the audio, asserting itself in obvious recording imperfections, are traces of another conversation, of being ‘at home’ — a private, safe and familiar space that enables the story — a search for safety, belonging and home — to be told.
This has been shown as a work in progress, still evolving. 13 minute version (shown at the Astoria Film Festival, New York, 2019) below, password needed.