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EXPOSED
video, 39 min, 2005

EXPOSED is a cinematic portray of Katherine, a 35 year old dancer who suffers from Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), a chronic condition caused by exposure to synthetic chemicals in consumer products, pesticides, building materials, exhaust, tabacco smoke, perfume, cleaning agents, food additives and others. While skeptics, particularly in the traditional medical field and the chemical industry, still question its legitimacy, for Katherine it is a debilitating everyday reality, forcing her to live outside of the norms of her society. Her personal story functions as a catalyst to reflect on contemporary conditions of American society, its values and desires, and the complex relation between environment and health.

EXPOSED draws a psychogram of Katherine, a close-up look that captures her isolation and vulnerability in her struggle for medical and financial help, as well as artistic recognition. She discusses the restrictions of participating in her community and her vision of human and cultural interrelations in a society dominated by profit and consumption.
Furthermore Katherine’s portrayal includes her own "home video" footage documenting her illness over the past 10 years, which allows a rare and intimate insight into her precarious situation and the psychological effects of living with MCS.

The film is characterized by a personal and intimate dialogue with the subject that goes far beyond an ethnographic or journalistic eye. In giving a voice to Katherine, her needs as a woman and as part of a growing community of the chemically sensitive, the project promotes the individual need for respect, artistic expression and being part of society. It questions the stigma of disability, and conventional definitions of success and failure.

EXPOSED crosses borders between video art, documentary film and fiction.  Exploring the frictions between (what we define and accept as) reality and fiction, interpretation and projection, EXPOSED ultimately reflects on different strategies of representation and a mediated depiction of reality. The complexity of perception and subjective reality is further accentuated by the soundtrack composed by Susanne Brokesch which emphasizes the psychological and emotional state of Katherine.

QUOTE FROM THE PROTAGONIST:
"…That day: everything was very different. I couldn’t pretend another minute that it was me, that it was psychological, that I can deal with this. I was pushed way past the point that I could justify, rationalize or use any one of the million rationalizations that this culture feeds in, talks about and lives in every day. That’s why I was saying that what I want to be true and what this world tells me is true, has no bearing on reality. Reality is what it is; it’s a separate thing. I am chemically sensitive. There is nothing I can do about it…" (Katherine)

Concept, script, camera, editing: Heidrun Holzfeind
Hi8 footage: Katherine Devoir
Additional footage: Peter Richards, Anderson laboratories, Stelios Argiros
Music: Susanne Brokesch
Additional tracks: AGF, atomheart, Christine Bard, Bjork, Celia, HP Zinker, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Nine Inch Nails, Fennesz remix by Patrick Pulsinger, Radiohead, Soundgarden, Supersilent, Amon Tobin

Produced in collaboration with Katherine Devoir / copyright Heidrun Holzfeind 2005.

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