Since our last posts a lot has happened. After we arrived in Germany from our first trip to Sanaa, Matthias had to go immediately to Switzerland for work, but still provides us now via internet with 6-channel audio-files for the installation at the Bab al-Yemen.
Rene and I had (then back in Giessen) to deal a lot with organisational matters and some general tryouts, and we both are now again in Sanaa since 10 days. Beside all the artistic video, light and audio-stuff, the development of a general timeline for the installation (which is now supposed to run for 2 hours each day between September the 20. and October the 3), and the further elaboration of the concept, one of our main tasks is actually to make sure, that all the technical and constructional material we need for the installation, will be provided right in time.
We are now quite professional in writing "to-do"-lists (i think we could do a new installation, just pinning the walls of the Bab al-Yemen with self-written lists of all kind :-) ), and had a lot of meetings and appointments with most different people.
A public-space installation of this size is quite new for the Yemen, and so there are a lot of aspects you have to think about, you never would deal with in a European country. But to be honest, we never thought about that as an obstacle, and this challenge became even some kind of fun for us. All we do has (at least regarding the technical aspects) always to be in a balance of being realistic and possible, and since we decided from the very beginning to "extend what is possible as much as possible", we have been very conscious about all that stuff.
Here in Sanaa, we are very grateful for all the support we get, especially for the great oppurtunity to prepare all the work in the French Cultural Center (which became our "working space" for the last 10 days) and for all the people, that help(ed) us where they can(could). Once the installation is running, we will post another message, and thank all of them personally.
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