Paula's Project Proposal

What do you want to make?

I want to make several video pieces in which I work with ordinary people such as my mother or my neighbors as the main characters. As a setting I will use their ordinary surrounding such as their living room to set up a space with a fixed frame in which acting can take place. Their normal surroundings become a stage on which they play themselves (or each other) as characters - characters of their own life. I am interested in the relationship between staged and real emotions and the power of acting in everyday life. The area is in the centre of Berlin and it might be an idea to use this method as a method of engaging with the people in the area.

The methodology will be similar to the photos in the earlier series "Exceptional Encounters", of heterosexual men in hotel rooms. I will set up a stage in which things will be performed for the camera. I my new work I want the method to be apparent within the work itself. The viewer should recognize that the setting

is staged ! how does that work!  The fact you see the normal, everyday surroundings and the actions are different than you would expect. 

Setting up conditions of intimacy. part of work of photographer. in Berlin Up until now I have always talked about content - queer theory, femanist theory, power relations , these are all relevant but I want to Ü whatÜ work with mother the method was in the piece, (unpack this) it iset up but something real is taking place

Beauty queens; depict strong emotion, this also affects the viewer, one can,t help having a strong reaction to such an image. ambivolent in their expression it, s staged but also real.

Time table:

End of September I will visit my mother, et people to join the project.

what is the minimum.

for the proposal make prototypes.

How do you plan to make it?

The reading I have done so far are the writings and the research by psychologists Brené Brown and Harriet Lerner. They write on xyz (emotions, mothers, role of play). Now I want to additionally research the meaning of acting / reenacting to people. And by "acting" I mean an unconscious way of acting such as our everyday roles as parents, students, teachers, sisters etc as well as conscious roles played out in drama therapy for example.

Once I have found a person who is willing to work with me, let's say hopefully my mother, I will explain to her that

I want the protagonists to reveal something of themselves by choosing on what they want to reenact or how they do it.

Drama Therapie, Verhaltenstherapie