In 2007 Sonia Leimer found a part of the Chinese Wall in Mongolia. This part was built in the middle of the Mongolian landscape for a movie shot by BBC called „Genghis Khan“. Together with the Mongolian film crew that shot the original scenes Sonia Leimer did a movie with and about the leftover film set.
A diametrical projection is showing two videos: the original scene that plays at the fake wall and the movie that she made with and about the left over film set. The sound of both videos are merged into each other. “At first we see a landscape with a herd of sheep meandering by a short stretch of a wall and a motorcyclist riding towards it. Suddenly you realize, however, that it is not a wall, but rather a prop for a movie – irritated and uneasy about the place lessness of this place. The self-evident ease of the movement on the screen leaves you with the impression of the everyday normality of this staged landscape. At the same time we see a landscape with a city surrounded by walls seeming to date from some bygone age. Mongolian warriors ride past with warlike howls towards the fortifications. Fast, loud, aggressive – staging and enacting a past where the medium of film did not exist. All the while we find ourselves in the simultaneous of different times and places and different uses of the landscape all tied together by the artifice of the wall.”
Monika Wulz
