STULTIFERA GARDEN

A park is a place were city dwellers enjoy a cultivated form of nature and recover from busy urbanlife. It is designed for activities such as sports, promanades, pick-nicking and playground visits. But at the same time it is implementing the “elsewhere” - an unruled territory for individuals who seek to be out of public surveillance, such as teenagers, drug dealers, cruisers or homeless.

Domke uses a travelling camera to approach the parks diverse character, emphasizing polarities, such as observing and being watched, high and low-culture, control and non-control. The incessant pan evolves from a classic park display towards a dystopic, mazy structure of trails. The camera accesses milieus that formed architectonical structures in the shrubs, such as cruising areas and drug trafficking points and discovers places that became hubs for teens as a get-away, or for elderly as a meeting point - each and everyone with their own character and history. Without stating explicit action or narrative Stultifera Garden portraits the park as a space where parallel milieus and interests function along side. Intruding as an omniscient eye, Domke is constructing the real to establish the fictitious.