L A R A

In the IDA Module visual story telling I was interested in creating intimacy in a story. So, it only made sense to really dive into Lara’s perception of the world when I met her again in April 22. She’s the same age as I am and we have been friends in our childhood years. The way she opened up to me about her mental illness and addiction struggles was not only very touching, but also brave. Her vulnerability went right under my skin.
After a phone call we decided on telling her story together. Lara sent me voice messages about her emotions and what she was experiencing every day for about two months. Also, we met a few more times to go through her notebooks and brainstorm together. The material for the narrative part of the project was gathering quickly. On the other hand, everything we decided on for the visual part of the story, didn’t work out as planned. I borrowed Lara a camera of mine, so she would have the authorship to film whatever she thought would be representing her inner world. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the capacity to film anything and couldn’t manage to send me the pictures she took, before the IDA exhibition. Therefore I tried to visually capture what Lara and my interaction made me feel like in quite a short time span.
The video is divided in five chapters all named by another feeling, representing the range of emotions Lara keeps going through. The video was projected in a loop onto a black cloth hanging from the ceiling, to reenforce the thought spiral Lara keeps getting stuck in. I decided on keeping all the text in Swiss German, because it was the language we were communicating in.
Our interaction made me reflect a lot about how much control I want to take on in my future projects and how to deal with an unpredictable situation. Personally, it was an intense experience, since getting to know Lara again really moved me and distancing myself from her was harder than I’d have ever thought.

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