Freund Hein

Freund Hein is an anachronistic German vernacular expression, ‘Hein’ being the impersonation of Death as an unwelcome ‘friend’ knocking on one’s door. In my latest video installation I conceptualized a performance based film project as an exploration of the question of death. Since the human death is typically hidden from everyday life what is the source of our death-image? I invited people of different ages and backgrounds to my studio and asked them ‘to die’ in front of the camera. The participants were free to improvise in whatever way they wanted in pretending the act of dying.Some chose to be ‘shot’, some were ‘stabbed’, some ‘chocked', others said ‘good bye’, laid down and ‘died’.