An ephemeral photographic installation
created in September 2003 by Ulrich Fischer at Erevan, in Armenia.
THE PROJECT:
I started by superimposing maps of Erevan and Geneva, in an effort to find identical routes.
Then, using this customised map (see below), I walked along the streets of Geneva looking for the fragmented emergence of a city I didn’t know and could only dream of, Erevan. I forbade myself from searching for images of Erevan anywhere else than in my own imagination, overlaid with Geneva’s reality. While exploring the walls and the texture of a city I thought I knew like the back of my hand, I felt as if I were discovering Geneva for the first time… Armenia was still a distant prospect, but already the streets of my own city had made me travel…
When I arrived at Erevan, with approximately 100 images and armed with my special map, I tried to identify the best “areas of dialogue” between the two cities: the idea was to find in a specific place the best location for a creation that could be described as “remote editing”… (to use a term coined by famous Armenian director A. Pelechian).
When installing specific images, they seemed to take on a new dimension: the photos had been developed on glossy paper, and the street of Erevan is mirrored on the darker and shinier parts of the picture… Erevan absorbed and alive on a still picture of Geneva: that was something that couldn’t be done in a gallery.
Once the installation was complete, I turned my back on my creation and lost all control of subsequent events: now the images belong to the city, sections of Armenian walls that are going to decide, together with local residents, what is to become of these pictures from afar. The goal has been reached – something has been captured in a place and released in another, the image can go on to live a life of independence. Bystanders dwell in front of the photos, take them in their hands for a better look… and replace them a couple of yards further on.
Of this ephemeral project remain only a photographic log and some video clips: these images were displayed at the “Génétiquement modifiable” opening/exhibition.
