Homesick for Sadness
2013
Single-Channel Video
2:48 minutes
Homesick for Sadness is concerned with the history and memorialization of brothels in Nazi concentration camps. While on a guided tour of KZ Buchenwald, I learned that the brothels were conceived as a program to motivate workers to increase production through an alternative economy. I asked the tour guide why the brothel was not represented on the miniature scale model of the camp and he said that it was better this way. With concern over this revisionist history and the fate of these women, I visited KZ Ravensbruck concentration camp for women and KZ Dachau. The video juxtaposes found footage from an infamous scene in Liliana Cavani’s The Night Porter about a former Nazi officer and concentration camp survivor who resume their affair 13 years after the war ends. The title of the video is taken from a line of Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte (If I could wish for something). I seek to question our understanding of history, memory, and memorials at sites of remembrance.