The fashion of taking over ex-establishments is common to the nature of gentrification. The attraction of outdated/nostalgic decor, child like attraction for the kitsch...is this the new exotica?
Excerpt from an article by Diana Thater:
'We're so conditioned by narrative, that there's a beginning, middle and end. But when you break apart those conventions, stepping outside of the model, stepping outside of time and space and looking in, you see what those rules are. If you can go back into that space, then perhaps your perspective can be not as colonialistic or object-subject-orientated or binary which, culturally speaking are ways we understand animals, ecosystems and language- but something else within that space and within art.'
I think back to my voyeuristic recordings of various 'strangers' from two ends of a scale, attractive to completely unattractive to a public. I am thinking of three recordings in particular: a street performer, preacher and a statue. These are characters I have recognized and observed on my travels. The idea of the site and story of Bodega Hjorten was an interesting playground to expand on these observations, a method of homing strangers.