Meadowlands Zone 1 is a video installation constituted by one video projection and two monitors taking place in a dark space, divided into two rooms. All videos are connected to each other to create one narrative surrounding. The title is the name of the neighbourhood in Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, where the videos have been shot. In the first room a projection is placed on one wall. It is the heart of the installation, the center point where the narration takes place. A black guy is standing within a poor environment, surrounded by trash and dirt, in the back of him barracks are visible. Pointing at his surrounding he talks loud and strong-willed into the camera in Zulu, accompanied by English subtitle. Charged with emotions he complains about the corruption and distress in his country. Very convincingly and impressively he expresses his anger about the unfairness in South Africa, which is still omnipresent in the townships. Being furious about no changes at all he is demonstrating and communicating his feelings to the world. After 25 seconds the video starts again from the beginning.

At the end of the room an open alleyway leads into a second room in which two monitors are installed next to each other on one wall. Both have the same function by informing about the development of the video being shown in the first room. The monitor on the left hand side shows a video, in which a guy, who is sitting on the back of a Pick-up, is asking different men on the street if they are interested in participating in a casting. Everyone taking part has got 20 seconds time to tell the world, what concerns him most. The person with the strongest, most intense and sensational performance will win the competition. The winner will be filmed at a special place by presenting his message and will receive some money. After six men have joined the guy on the back of the Pick-up, the car drives to a location, where the casting takes place. At the end of the video the guy tells the participants who the winner is.
The video from the monitor on the right side shows the footage of the casting. Each of the six men is filmed in front of a neutral house wall, within 20 seconds time each single person is presenting himself in front of the camera with his most important message. Not until entering the second room it becomes evident that the video shown in the first room is the result of the videos from the second room, an artificially constructed demonstration of emotion, geared towards stereotypes.
Simon Senn travelled through the townships in South Africa during the summer 2010 to get an idea about the established stereotypes that the world outside the townships has developed about these areas and their inhabitants, as well as how the residents themselves deal with certain clichés and expectations to which they are subjected to. They appear to have silently accepted their situation and can only be pulled out of this lethargic state through the promise of diversity by strangers. This gives them impetus to thus stand up and proclaim their opinion and to react against this assumed stereotyping and in what way they, if at all, identify with it. In face of the different reactions which alternate between euphoria and shyness, fun and sincerity the group dynamic is noticeable in both videos in the second room, which relies on the fact that life is changing for the six men at least for a moment and on the other side out of a collective emotion. Despite the individual statements, the essence of the messages of all participants is the same, a collective dissatisfaction.

Text: Judith Platte