This video was made during the artists´ stay at an artist in residency program in Germany. The question of displacement and of the nomadic life of artists in search of inspiration is a recurring subject in art. The search for the exotic, of the different and of the “Other” emerges once again today in the scope of these discussions. The work seeks to question the notion of voluntary “dépaysement” and the kind of temporary lifestyle in which contemporary artists are more and more involved.

With the effects of the so called “Globalization” in the field of arts, a large number of artists migrate and temporarily install themselves in places where, in most cases, the context is foreign and unfamiliar. In what way does this affect the contemporary sensibility of their work? During the scholarship at the residence in Schöppingen, the artist found a reproduction of Van Gogh´s painting “Room at Arles” in his studio. A popularized and already infinitely reproduced image that has become a highly romanticized cliché about artists and they´re practices.

This reproduction was the starting point for the video piece, showing the unfolding of an action in time. During one day, the room is gradually transformed by objects brought in by the artist, and by the forgotten objects from previous artists that are then re-appropriated and inserted into the space.

From its original state at the moment of the artists´ arrival, the studio is transformed into an imprint of a passage and an attempt to catalogue the objects and of the place through the appropriations of these things. This action suggests a practice of displacement, be it of the reproduction of Van Gogh or of the previous presences in that same space and context. The film grasps the experience of passage in an idealized model, until a complete alienation with its surroundings.