This Makes Me Want to Predict the Past, 2019
Super 8 film, digitized, 16 min
Munich’s Olympia-Einkaufszentrum shopping mall (OEZ) was the scene of a racist attack in 2016 that left nine dead and many others injured. The victims were young postmigrants – with Kurdish, Turkish, Roma and Sinti backgrounds – a fact that was left out of many reports. Initially viewed as not being politically motivated, the attacker’s rampage has been considered since October 2019 as having a proven racist and right-wing extremist background. Cana Bilir-Meier’s film shows three Kurdish and Turkish girls, Sosuna Yildiz, Aleyna Osmanoğlu, and Berfin Ünsal, as they spend time in and around the mall, riding the escalators and trying on clothing and accessories. They recreate scenes from a play titled Düşler Ülkesi (Land of Dreams), historical photos of which are shown in the video. The play, which was written by Erman Okay and staged with the cooperation of Zühal Bilir-Meier, the artist’s mother, premiered at Munich’s Theater der Jugend in 1982. Its subject was the everyday lives of “guest workers.” Developed as a theater education project to provide a critical view of racism, the play aimed to empower migrant youth and foster understanding. The audio track accompanying the video features user comments on a YouTube video by musician Childish Gambino, in which fans reinterpret a line from his song Redbone, which refers to experiences of racism.
