Failed Architecture and Blind Spots

Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
Still from the film »We will meet in the blind spot« © 2015 Maj Hasager, (HD video, 35 min)
EUR research, 2013. Photograph by Maj Hasager
EUR research, 2013. Photograph by Maj Hasager

Danish artist Maj Hasager’s film We will meet in the blind spot (2015), which had it’s German première at Akademie Schloss Solitude, explores the architecture in and around the Esposizione Universale di Roma (EUR) area – Mussolini’s utopian »Third Rome«. The ideologically and politically »failed project«, as Hasager calls it, was never completed until the 1960’s, eventually finished under very different purposes of urban planning. Today in the »White City«, which now mostly houses officials and businessmen, the Filipino migrant community – Italy’s oldest – is present as domestic workers, gardeners, chauffeurs, etc. – yet remains seemingly unnoticed at the same time. As a document of stories and voices, situated between documentary and fiction, We will meet in the blind spot focuses on the leisure time and interests described by individuals in the group to create a reversed and empowered image.

The photo gallery shows some of the impressive moments Hasager caught while working with the Filipino community and gives insight into her research. It features film stills and material from the book accompanying the film project, which contains archive material and commissioned essays concerning aspects such as immigration and the function of architecture in rewriting Italy’s history after WWII.