‘Der Unbekannte Einwanderer’ (translation from German: ‘The Unknown Immigrant’) is an audiovisual installation which collects instants, details of the surrounding environment; its colours, textures, materials full of emotion capable of defining the personality of a city.

When we walk around a place for the first time, we always make a mental image of it for ourselves, based on what its details suggest to us; nevertheless, with time we make the space ours and see it as a whole, without further analysis. This piece tries to once again bring us closer to the details, re-establishing the relationships of the public with the space which surrounds it, and with those moments of daily life that become invisible over time if not observed from a distance.

Even following the same route, each person will focus on different elements, perceiving some different sensations and classifying them in their own minds as a different space. The elements which strike us depend on a multitude of factors, from cultural to our mood or what we might have done that day, so that even though on the grand scale the spaces remain unaltered, it is in the details where the form of how we understand them lies.

‘The Unknown Immigrant’ is the feeling we have when we return to a familiar place after a long time, now inhabited by other people and used for other ends. We don’t recognize what surrounds us and no one recognizes us… however, when we wander around our old stomping grounds, beyond the surface details, we connect all over again with shapes, textures, colours and ways of doing things; elements that time can’t change and which make us feel the authentic foundation of the city, its culture and the way its inhabitants use it.

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The mounting of the installation is simple, a vertical projection of constantly walking feet, showing different surface areas and textures, giving us a real point of view to focus on.

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Who hasn’t walked along looking at their feet, alone with their thoughts?
Melancholy and absorbing music introduces us into the video as, projected temporarily on the front screen, fleeting flashes of the small details that make up this landscape (objects we find on the ground, graffiti on the walls, elements of daily life that the daily routine now doesn’t let us see) that we take from it, to show us the reality surrounding us.