A R C H I E F1 9 9 8  
16th
  Merilyn Fairskye
Flash
  Australia 1998
Vieotape, 6:27, colour, mono
 
It is dark outside, blowing up a gale, raining. Through a window, we see the trappings of an airport and reflected in the glass, we see people passing by. Inside, in the light, sits a man with a beard. The storm has stopped him from travelling any further. His reflection in the window gives him cause for contemplation. He let his beard grow when he went to Moscow to study as a declaration of independence towards the communist regime. Now he experiences his beard as something that is a part of him, something that protects him. But also, as something that steals a moment of private intimacy from him every morning of his life: the moment of shaving, the moment of confrontation with his unadorned image of self, the moment of decision-making. His mother refused to give him a kiss when she came to pick him up at the airport and saw him with a beard for the first time. Another moment out of his life he will never forget. When the political situation in eastern Europe changed, he wanted to be a part of it and so went to work in Washington for his government. Disillusioned, he wanted to leave after several years and on the day that his mother came to visit him he had taken the decision to return. His decision changed her, and during her stay she spoke to him hardly at all. They had a picture taken upon her departure, but she left without taking leave of him. They never spoke again: his plane's delay made him too late for her funeral.

– Carla Hoekendijk

Text: Merilyn Fairskye, Ognian Pishev, Sound: Merilyn Fairskye, Greg Ferris, Editing: Greg Ferris, With: Ognian Pishev, Production: Bench Press Productions.

Merilyn Fairskye ° 1950, Melbourne (Australia)
Lives and works in Sydney (Australia)


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