Narva is an Estonian city on the border with Russia. Most of its residents speak Russian, and since the demise of the Soviet Union, many have been officially stateless or held so-called alien passports. To curb the influence of Russian propaganda, the Estonian government shut off the major Russian news stations when Russia launched its war of aggression against Ukraine in the spring of 2022. Zielony recorded his footage in a dark interior. Illuminated only by the erratically flickering light of a television screen, several young people comment on the television program as they zap through the channels. We hear Estonian, Russian, Ukrainian, and English. Scenes from the ongoing war alternate with feature films, series, esoterica, music—and almost everything seems tinged by a climate of violence. We might call it an apocalyptic farewell to the present that flits through the living room: yet what the screen shows is ordinary everyday life, its reflexes lighting up the young viewers’ faces.
Watching TV in Narva, 2022
2–Channel video installation
The work Watching TV in Narva was produced for the exhibition „Dark Data“ at Museum Marta Herford 2022.
Editor: Janina Herhoffer
2–Channel video installation, color, sound
17:36 min
Edition of 8 + 2AP
Tobias Zielony
Tobias Zielony is known for his photographic depictions of young people living on the fringes of affluent societies and social acceptance. For the past 20 years, Zielony has focused on suburban milieus that, from Canada to England, Ukraine, Israel, and Japan, have in common that they have fallen out of the promises of modernity's progress and are establishing a temporary life in their own cultural niches. What goes hand in hand with melancholy at the same time reveals a great human tenderness in the cohesion of precarious communities, which Zielony approaches and gives the space to stage themselves. In the process, Zielony's critical approach to documentary manifests itself in a specific aesthetic and relationship to fiction. His numerous institutional exhibitions include the German Pavilion in Venice 2015. Tobias Zielony is a professor in Hamburg since 2022.
Zielony´s work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions recently such as Watching TV in Narva (KOW Berlin 2023), Dark Data (Marta Herford 2022) and Touch. Politiken der Berührung (EMOP Berlin, c/o Amtsalon 2023), Nach August Sander Menschen des 21. Jahrhunderts (Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen 2022).
- Anna Boghiguian
- Candice Breitz
- Marco A. Castillo
- CATPC
- Alice Creischer
- Chto Delat
- Clegg & Guttmann
- Eugenio Dittborn
- Heinrich Dunst
- Anna Ehrenstein
- León Ferrari
- Peter Friedl
- Sophie Gogl
- Barbara Hammer
- Ramon Haze
- Hiwa K
- Simon Lehner
- Renzo Martens
- Chris Martin
- Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger
- Oswald Oberhuber
- Mario Pfeifer
- Dierk Schmidt
- Santiago Sierra
- Michael E. Smith
- Franz Erhard Walther
- Clemens von Wedemeyer
- Tobias Zielony