Fernanda Farah

Fernanda Farah- artist in residence on april/may 2005- „you’ve got to serve yourself, ain’t nobody is gonna do for you“ (performance).


I spend two wonderful months in the "artist in residence" program from quartier 21 in Wien.

I was able to finish my long dreamed solo, which was a video-theatre performance based on the theatre grammar. I had this time only for me, apart from everyday preoccupations, but in a way I was still at home, it was not the hotel-production situation I’m used to. People in quartier 21 are not only professional but also warm to deal with what they have in this program: artists in this very delicate moment that is the creation of something. This time where you are not that sure everything is going to work as you wanted before you started doing it. I had so much support from them, also space to have doubts, not to mention the lovely time on the cafe pause exchanging impressions of art and laughs. It was pretty much like a dream, living in this huge quartier. A little like to live in a movie set, surrounded everyday by hundreds of people (mostly young and beautiful, just like in movies) who go to the museums, or have lunch with friends, lay on the sun with laptops, get in love. I felt like the only one who had a real life in that quartier: I had also to cross the patio, not only to meet friends or go to the museum, but also to have meetings with Antonia Kuehnel (thanks! such a good professional) in her office, and do my laundry on the other side of the « patio », or come back home (that was my home… my back yard!) alone. Without this strange but also magic feeling, I’m not sure if I could produce my work that fast. I am sure that I will carry that nostalgia of Wien (we have a better word in Portuguese : saudade) in all my solo-works.