LETTER TO MY FATHER (STANDING BY THE FENCE)

of MOTTA Carlos

UNITED STATES, 2005, 00:14:30

Production : MOTTA Carlos
Genre : Video art
Keyword : America, Homage, Memory, Photographs, Society

Summary :
"Letter to my father (standing by the fence )" 2005 uses the fence around Ground Zero as a signifier for division and as a consequence of political mismanagement. The work speaks about the socio-emotional impact that the WTC Site has on its visitors. The narrative presents their “testimonies” juxtaposed with a text in first person, articulated by a narrator that asks questions about the dangers of historicizing the present, the meaning of a memorial in a place of big economic projections, the anachronism of a tourism of spectacle and about ideas of nationalism versus “foreign” identity.

The video focuses on the perspective of an immigrant after the Sept. 11th Attacks in New York.
The narrator expresses his situation of "exiled" as that of a product of social, economic and political contradictions associated with political turmoil in third world countries. The works attempts to expose the impact of governmental and media rhetoric in relationship to terrorism and the assumptions and suspicions based on nationality.

to print