Unless is a collaborative work with Zurich-based artist Yara Dulac Gisler. Unless is an experimental docu-fiction, which follows five characters through mundane, ritualistic situations of Basel's industrial, eerie neighborhood of Dreispitz. The project emerged from my longer-term engagement and research into the figure of the trickster, who is characterized by their “political gestures, insofar as [they are] a tactic of apparent conformity while retaining some measure of self-empowerment; a means of working within the framework of power without fully subscribing to its ‘truths’.” (Jean Fisher)  

This figure is central to Unless, and was borne of the confrontation with what it means to perform for the camera as much of my work deals with strategies of refusals. Unless explores the potential of intimacy and illegibility along the borders of a group and its outside. Here, a group of young people forge a space-time that is characterised solely by the tricksters’ interactions that are built on intimacy and solidarity. This space is characterised by an ever lasting sunset, which signifies an ‘otherwise’ as it draws parallels to a generative space-time for those who create liveable bubbles, inhabitable spaces through elusivity, fugitivity, and fabulation. 

The film is presented as a three-channel video installation, playing as seamless loop.