stadtprojektionen V

A woman, drawn with fleeting strokes, stands at a window, lingering. A rainy day. Not much happens: She merely moves the fingers of her left hand and, every now and then, a glistening drop runs down the window. No Time is the title of this short film by Zilla Leutenegger, who often combines wall drawing and film projection in her work. In No Time, the drawing is an integral part of the film. This work can be read as a daydream, in which time is irrelevant. The figure is self-absorbed and seems to be content with themselves. The No Time projection is intended as a counterpart to Guy Ben Ner’s film. While his Moby Dick represents the wild and loud interactions in school playgrounds, Leutenegger’s film features a different (schoolyard) figure: The one who stands by herself, observing something on her own, and is quite happy to do so.

The No Time projection takes place at a window of the school library, behind which, there is a wood-panelled reading corner. And libraries, in turn, are quiet places for reflection, for contemplation – and sometimes for (mutual) observation of other readers.

An adventurous sailor girl, in a kitchen that has been converted into an improvised ship, takes over the schoolyard at the Grossacker primary school. She performs her mischief at lofty heights, on the gable of a saw-tooth roof. Her counterpart, with whom she, for example, passes a plate back and forth in the swaying hull, is an adult sailor. This is Guy Ben Ner, who has several roles in the film: He is an artist, actor (playing the character Ishmael), film director and the father of the six-year-old sailor girl. Moby Dick is the title of this silent film from the year 2000 – a nimble, improvised adaptation of the famous 1851 eponymous novel about a whaling expedition. The facial expressions and exaggerated acts in Guy Ben Ner’s video bring early silent films to mind.

The projection is inspired by the wildness of children and their fantasy worlds – which can sometimes emerge in the school playground within the duration of a short break.

On the sports field at the Grossacker primary school, the visitor encounters, or even immerses themselves in, the video piece Lila by Noha Mokhtar. The title refers to a ritual ceremony practised by the Gnawa, a Black ethnic group from south of the Sahara, who came to Morocco as slaves in the 15th and 16th centuries. The ceremony is a form of music therapy and helps to heal suffering, be it physical or mental. Participants are put into a mystical trance by means of a colour-based ritual.

Lila shows two female bodies dancing to Gnawa rhythms (composed by Swiss-Algerian musician Khalil Bensid) and hula-hooping. From the flight of steps where the music can be heard, the observer wishing to take a closer look can dive into the projection and become part of the intense blue or purple colour field. The sound fades away – it is like being underwater. The linear markings on the sports field are set in motion by the oscillations of the hula hoops.

In one of the countless windows at the Silberturm complex, a film is running: animated movements drawn in ink on glass. The impressions that Luisa Zürcher associates with St Fiden are also countless. She grew up in this neighbourhood, often passing through Silberturm. In this animation, the artist reflects on her childhood: She says that “memories of pleasant conversations, sensory overload, stress, fine food, stealing, hiding from people you know but don’t want to see, waiting and queuing” all come to mind when she reminisces about this place. Mitem Mami go poste (Going Shopping with Mum) is also about becoming independent and questioning your attitude towards your parents: At the place where a certain act was once perceived to be heroic, it is suddenly re-evaluated.

What emerges is an animation in which Zürcher’s various impressions flow into one another like in a dream – personal and past, general and present.

Cream-coloured bubbles flow across a shop window in the courtyard at Falkensteinstrasse 25, with one shot dissolving into the next. Liquid Gold by Ilana Harris-Babou shows baby formula substitutes streaming down transparent surfaces or accumulating to form bubbles. The stark geometry of the courtyard facade is broken up by something amorphous. The filmed surface merges with the window. The act of giving breast milk to babies, which mostly takes place in private, is brought into the intimate outdoor space of a courtyard.

Liquid Gold is part of a series of works in which this artist addresses motherhood, particularly with regard to Black women. It only recently became publicly known that one of the largest food companies (Nestlé) adds more sugar to baby food products sold in Africa than to the same products sold in Europe. The title of this artwork is also reference to colostrum, the first milk produced immediately after birth, which is rich in numerous nutrients.

On the ceiling at the entrance to this futuristic St Gallen landmark, HanaHana by Mélodie Mousset draws us into a surreal barren landscape that is mostly divided into water and sand. A kind of mirage reveals itself in the computer-generated sunshine. Like a mangrove forest, forearms and hands of different sizes and skin tones burrow relentlessly into the sand and water. When other elements are introduced from games, the incessant growth and striving for more is, in part, broken and brought to a standstill. The structure made up of forearms and hands growing out of each other then reactivates itself and encourages collective exchange: A hand supports a forearm, providing energy and stability – just like the rounded concrete pillars supporting the elliptical 12-storey silver tower. The ultra-slick aesthetics of HanaHana suit the silvery tower’s aluminium panels and accentuate the futuristic aspect of the large-scale complex.

HanaHana was developed between 2016 and 2018 as a virtual reality artwork and motivates people to collectively shape this world. For stadtprojektionen V, Mélodie Mousset has transformed the work into a 15-minute film.

The facade of the Silberturm complex is defined by shimmering aluminium panels. Regula Engeler responds to this smooth surface with lush colourful vegetation. Her photo series can be seen on the shopping centre’s raised platform, accessible from the bus stop via a large flight of steps. In Flowers from the past (no linear time), the flowers mentioned in the title of the series shine on a terrace whose threshold makes it resemble a stage. Here, the artist works with analogue multiple exposures, using superimposed film material, among other things, to blend new situations with a slide projection from 2020. Flowers from her garden, picked in the semi-wilderness or bought at a flower market are overlaid – in very different phases: blossoming, gleaming, wilting and fading. This results in colourful instances of defamiliarisation and strange realities. For stadtprojektionen V, Regula Engeler has combined two series: one is characterised by striking beams of light, the other by more sedate layering of visual spaces.

A barn owl flies around the corner of a private passageway that can be peered into from Falkensteinstrasse. Where pieces of meat used to be delivered and transported along hanging rails into the storerooms at the Wegmann butcher’s shop, peace and quiet has been restored for the past two years. This is a place in transition, where time is on hold. The whispering wind can be heard, and sometimes the rustling of leaves in the open passageway. Here, Elisabeth Nembrini presents her 2018 artwork Zeitlupe (Slow Motion), made from perforated paper and projected onto the wall using an overhead projector. This artist transforms photographs, be they her own or found ones, in slow processes that can involve perforation, embroidery, or drawing on glass panels. Nembrini’s manipulation of the owl’s plumage makes it come across like magnificent ornamentation. Zeitlupe is combined with another projection, which shows a raven – a scavenger bird that, like the owl, represents cleverness and the ability to learn.

An elderly lady, looking like she has come straight out of a film, gazes into a mirror, framed by floral wallpaper. A few shots later, we see a close-up of her striped skirt, or she poses with a gold chain and folded arms in front of her wardrobe. Always elegant, always with attitude – this is the cosmos of Gerta Zahradnik, known as Gerti, seen through the camera of her granddaughter Alexandra Bondi de Antoni. The photographer took pictures of Gerti for over a decade, mostly in the latter’s Vienna flat. What Bondi de Antoni thus made visible was a private life that had no great public presence. With the projection onto the apartment building at Falkensteinstrasse 74, this life becomes part of the public space for four nights. The first section of the photo series shows the self-love of a 90-year-old woman who consciously uses clothing to feel good about herself on a daily basis. At the same time, it becomes clear that elderly women still rarely appear in media imagery. While the first section of the photo series exudes a noble and sometimes diva-like aura, the second section is sometimes ironic and comical: Here, Alexandra Bondi de Antoni took the photo project further, bringing in her sister Cathrine and mother Christine to portray Gerti together with them. The photographer is fascinated by how clothes and the sense of shame feel different across generations, and how the bodies of the women in her family interact with each other when being photographed.