A project by Gábor Hollós & Michaela Nocker Music: Sebastian Ballina
Berlin, May 2015
The personal reference to a catastrophe to the extent that has occurred in Nepal is often unimaginable for us in Central Europe. The sensational reports, pictures of the destruction and the injured, the immense despair and the immeasurably increasing numbers of victims ... .200 ... .1000 ... .4000 ... .9000. These are human lives that are degraded to numbers here; they are lifetimes that have been destroyed. A dramatic situation like that, would it be reasonable for us? And what if it happened in the middle of Berlin, in a memorable place like Alexanderplatz? How would your life change? Would you be able to imagine such a nightmare scenario?
Michaela Nocker and Gábor Hóllos let this scenario play through themselves a few weeks after the devastating earthquake accident passers-by at the Alexanderplatz subway station. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, on the way to work, home, lost in thought or stressed out, they were stopped to pause for a moment and ask themselves this question: 'What if ...' To put themselves in the position of this exceptional situation getting close to home and consciously tracking down. 'What if' ...' not only asks about the imagination of passers-by in an unusual, high-traffic place, it also explores the empathy of our Western civilization and establishes a link to our personal lives and the fate of thousands of suffering people in Nepal. The passersby's reports produced personal, pictorial and strongly touching narratives, which also leave their mark on us. Interviewers and interviewees were confronted with their own fears, the question of the persistence of ethical values such as empathy and compassion in this crisis-ridden, globalized world. Our world, in which the gap between rich and poor, prosperity and bitter poverty can no longer be closed by moral principles of faith.
There are situations that only happen somewhere else ... But there are also situations that we consciously feel.
"It's unimaginable." (Hilal)
"I do not feel really safe right now because I think it could come again." (Marina)
"For me life is not self-evident, I think I am very gifted that I can live here, in this prosperity, with the security that I enjoy." (Johanna)
“I hope not me neither anybody else has to carry these tragedy again, anywhere in the world.” (I.A.)