Happyland

The video installation Happyland evokes visions of paradise found, of a wonderful place drenched in joy. Through five staged moving self-portraits, the musical work depicts the artists as tourist-pilgrims, travelling through five versions of contemporary promised lands. Martyrs, folklorists, idealists, the enlightened, and the devoted: Happyland dives into these characters from touristic subcultures, literally following in their footsteps to create a fiction of holiday bliss.

Referring to amusement parks and holiday fairs, Happyland deals with the shifting of landscapes into recreational infrastructures. In the installation, projections and monitors are integrated into spatial scenes, which can be entered by the visitor. The musical soundtrack of each video contributes to a shared soundscape within the space.

Happyland premiered in the summer of 2014 at Bâtiment d’Art Contemporain in Geneva and ran for six weeks. In the summer of 2016, the installation was presented at Tent Rotterdam. On both occasions, the exhibition included a series of events such as guided performative city tours and holiday slide nights.