Stamps open doors. Not only on public documents, but also on wrists, stamps are used as keys to «grant» access and a sense of belonging to certain groups.

In the fictional video essay, «Act privileged!» the protagonists duplicate the entrance stamp of a nightclub with the help of markers and tape. Thus gaining self-determined access to nightlife without the risk of being excluded due to their appearance or the stamps in their passports.

The artist, Nicolle Bussien, explores the boundaries between self-empowerment and criminality, questioning the options for people who are labelled by the Swiss dominant society as «not belonging» for taking action. Because stamps not only open doors - but also close them.

Text by Alice Britschgi

together with: Titilayo Adebayo, Izabel Barros, Mardoché Kabengele, Mbene Mwambene, Timo Righetti, Anelis Kaiser Trujillo
production: Nicolle Bussien
camera: Alain Guillebeau
sound recording: Carole
postproduction: Nicolle Bussien
subtitle: Rachele Piffaretti
catering: Medina
thanks to: Yoftahe Efrem, Mohamed Hassan, Mayo Irion, Vanja Ivana Jelić, Mardoché Kabengele, Giorgia Piffaretti, Malana Rogers-Bursen, Schlachthaus Theater Bern
support: Burgergemeinde Bern, Grand Palais, Kultur Stadt Bern, Monsol Foundation, SoKultur, Steigi (filming location), Swisslos - Kultur Kanton Bern

The starting point for the text «Vermögensumverteilung» (Law on the redistribution of property) is the tradition of a legal law that supposedly legalized the theft of other people's property in ancient Egypt. According to legend, the legal law regulated the practice of misappropriation.

Together with the lawyer Cora Schmid, I have expanded the tradition around this ancient Egyptian law and translated it into the language of today's Swiss Penal Code.

The text work is based on the fictitious adoption of a freely imagined popular initiative «for a law on the independent redistribution of wealth». The questions, on which ethnic background our laws are based, and what the legalization of misappropriation would mean for our society remain at the center of this piece.

thanks to: Jessica Jurassica, Melanie Aebli, Tarek Naguib, Demian Hübscher

The video essay «Office for Economy and Labor» portrays the everyday work of an employee of said office. After the fictitious acceptance of the freely invented popular initiative «for a law on the independent redistribution of wealth», the employee at the counter is busy with the implementation of the new law. She is responsible for the deposit, handover and liquidation of the property handed over and checks whether the conditions for independent property redistribution have been fulfilled.

The imagined legal situation surrounding the legalization of the dispossession of property shows a defamiliarization of Swiss bureaucracy that humorously criticizes the institutionalization of ethics.

office stuff: Maia Gusberti, Roger Fähndrich
customers: Alfred Fankhauser, Eva De Souza, Giorgia Piffaretti, Kris Schneeberger, Mbene Mwambene, Tamara Milošević, Vanja Ivana Jelić
hand model: Loris Aregger
director: Nicolle Bussien
camera: Alain Guillebeau
audio: Giorgia Piffaretti
editing: Nicolle Bussien, Giorgia Piffaretti
scene: Nicolle Bussien, Giorgia Piffaretti
consulting: Giorgia Piffaretti
catering: Youness
thanks to: Amnesty International, Marianne Naeff, Fundbüro der Stadt Bern

«Réviser les lignes» (Eng: Revise the lines) is a two-channel video essay that poetically (de)constructs the marking and the boundary lines of soccer fields. The gesture of drawing lines is accompanied by a voice-over narration of a childhood memory. In the playground, we played: Swiss against foreigners.

Standard white lines evoke metaphorical separation and demarcation to be crossed by alternative lines. The work challenges categorical thinking in We and the Others.

«Réviser les lignes» is a reaction to the political debates around migration and belonging that are regularly carried out in the context of the post-migrant Swiss national football team.

direction/camera/production: Nicolle Bussien
cooperation concept: Mohamed Hassen, Giorgia Piffaretti
script: Nicolle Bussien, Mohamed Hassen
voice-over: Mohamed Hassen, Giorgia Piffaretti
postproduction: Nicolle Bussien, Giorgia Piffaretti
assistance: Puy Navarro, Nanuchka Zari
support: aaag architects, commune de Sierre, Fondation de Château Mercier, Kanton Solothurn Kuratorium für Kulturföderung

The classic photo studio for job applications becomes a polyphonic space in which the question of social norms and the difficulty of satisfying them is raised between flashing studio lights. Voices of job seekers critically question the face as a medium of truth and the photograph as an image of reality, while at the same time pointing out the structural discrimination in job seeking.

Friendly, sympathetic, dynamic, innovative, experienced and normal. The perfect application photo combines all of these attributes in one picture. The smiling application photo is a peculiarity of Switzerland.

But what is not peculiar is the high social value of work and at the same time the increasingly precarious working conditions. The work «Lights On» explores the impossibility of corresponding to a normalized picture.

 

speakers: Mohamed Hassan, Mbene Mwambene, Giorgia Piffaretti, Astrid Nigg
sound design: Timon Kurz
thanks to the anonymous interview partners

The feminist video essay «Inside Out» shows a cinematographic search for closeness. In the interplay between sharpness and blurriness, the essay portrays intimate scenes of female masturbation. The large projected video embraces the audience in a darkened room and oppressively massages their auditory and visual senses. So close that it gets under the skin; the camera penetrates the intimacy, sometimes to such an extreme that the images become abstract which creates distance again. 

«Inside Out» feeds heteronormative sex cinemas with alternative images of female masturbation, without the will to involve the audience in a sexual way. 

production: Tamara Milošević
thanks to: Ursina Leutenegger, Simone Meyer, Milan Milošević, Erika Müller, Corinna Münster, Giorgia Piffaretti, Kino Rex Bern

Nimm Platz (Take a seat) is a text about a group discussion in which different ideas about space distribution clash. The source of inspiration were discussions at meetings of a self-organized community that had planned an exhibition together. The terms used are intentionally open and by proxy for equally functioning dynamic such as political debates. Each voice has its own position regards content and its own position on the sheet.

Some want to realize bigger things with many, others want space for themselves next to many.

The positioning of the folding chairs was determined by the visitors. The title is also ment as an invitation to sit on the chairs and read the text.

The video provides intimate insights into the transformation processes of two drag queen friends and simultaneously shows how they are observed by the film crew and the audience.

Through reflections, shifts and time jumps, the expected linear development from natural to artificial is broken. The protagonists play with attributes of masculinity and femininity, thus breaking the binary framework of bisexuality.

The ephemeral stages of concentrated make-up, changing and rehearsing become a stage show themselves. The otherwise protected space of preparations is exposed as spinning mirrors hang between the open dressing room and the floor-level stage and making all areas of the space continuously visible from every angle. The longer the video lasts the more the film crew and the audience becomes visible. The viewers become the viewed and vice versa.

protagonists: Steela Diamond, X Noëme (X Schneeberger)
production: Nicolle Bussien
text: X Noëme (X Schneeberger)
1. camera: Nicolle Bussien
2. camera: Alain Noguez
postproduction: Nicolle Bussien, Giorgia Piffaretti
set design: Nicolle Bussien, Giorgia Piffaretti
light: Francisco Herrera
sound: Moris Freiburghaus
assistance: Robin Bussien, Mohamed Hassan
support: Burgergemeinde Bern, Kanton Solothurn Kuratorium für Kulturföderungung, Kultur Stadt Bern, Kulturförderung Kanton Bern, Kulturförderung Stadt Aarau, Kunsthaus Zofingen, Kunstraum Aarau