As a research-creation project, each exhibition or event had a different focus on beauty. In Australia, we worked with the idea of intimacy, inspired by the vast distances geographically. In Moscow, it was nostalgia- this was during the transition of the Soviet Union to Russia. San Francisco was all about magic and pleasure – this was during the dot-com rise with its opulence. In Berlin, we looked at the identity of a new Berlin after the wall came down. For Canada, we focussed on the idea of longing and migration; it’s a country of immigrants, many dreaming of “back home.” For Norway, we picked hot/cold; for Cuba, it was floating/being in between..
History
The project was first launched in Australia in 1997 by Andrea Sunder-Plassmann and Sigi Torinus with Anita Kocsis (Australia) at the SCA Gallery in Sydney. The same year we brought browsing beauty to San Francisco, showing it at Gallery 16 with new video and performance. In 1998 we created a very different-looking show in Berlin, Germany (Galerie am Marstall), with the balloons remaining as the leading carriers of images. In Moscow (TV Gallery Moscow), we used Russian text and images found in and around Moscow. In 1999 the idea of browsing beauty became the basis for “Slushaj! Sasha und der Kosmos” (Galerie Marstall, Berlin Germany)