before belief (2011)

Site-specific installation conceived to fit the context of the provisorische tramhaltestelle, a space created by Joel Andres and friends, in response to the "overinstitutionalization of society" in the city of Basel.

Inspired by the idea of challenging the implicit and pre-established belief that public spaces should always be institutionally managed, this installation aimed to confront the audience with alien cultural traces, hoping to disturb and move the spectator out of the mind-numbing comfort of regulations controlling public urban spaces.

The resulting theater-like scene reminded of a "third-world" Christian church, featuring the same kind of arbitrary and foreign symbology that was imposed on colonized native populations, whose "story of life" was not related to the one offered by their conquerors... Seemingly disconnected abstract drawings were displayed on the side walls, "telling the story" of an unknown belief system (a religion? a cult?) which is apparently connected to the central piece: a gloryfied bird carcass featured in an altar-like stage.

The participating observers unexpectedly became part of a ritual that was beyond their understanding, because it required them to believe in a story that is not part of their culture. Finding oneself in a place where the story and the implicit rules are not known, creates a general sense of angst similar to that in which native peoples must have found themselves when a foreign religion was forcefully merged into their own beliefs.