Director: Markus Kneer, Daniel Schwartz
23’, Venezuela, Switzerland, 2013
Spanish, English with Turkish & English subtitles
Torre David is the world's tallest squat. This skyscraper in the center of Caracas, Venezuela, was never completed and stood vacant for over a decade. Five years ago, 750 families from the slums moved into the tower, installed water and electricity, and turned this building intended as bank headquarters into their home. “For me, being here is an opportunity that came from a tragedy,” says one occupant who lost his house in a flood. With its open stairwells and gaping holes, this half-completed carcass of a building houses innumerable little paradises rising up from the concrete floors poured by the new residents themselves. There’s a shop, a basketball court, a parking garage, a guard and a lock on the door to keep out criminals. Forty percent of Caracas’s population lives in slums. “In the slum, life is lawless. Here, it’s safe,” explains one woman, and another explains how filthy the building was when they first entered five years ago. Photos illustrate the story in split screen. The squatters work communally to make the building habitable. Short interviews alternate with scenes from everyday life in the tower, accompanied by rap music from El Cancerbero and others.
I remembered a game as I was waiting in the passenger lounge for the ferry to arrive just a few minutes ago. A game we used to play at home when I was young, in my country that is very far away from here, a relic from the distant past; I don’t even remember how we used to play it. The kind of game that makes me feel a thousand times lonelier than I already am among the crowd waiting to get on the ferry.
Félix Ziem is accepted as one of the well-known artists of the romantic landscape painting, and has been followed closely by art lovers and collectors of all periods since. He had a profound influence on generations of artists after him, and was the first artist whose works were acquired by the Louvre while he was still alive.
I think it was Frank Zappa – though others claim it was Laurie Anderson – who said in an interview that ‘writing on music is much like dancing on architecture’.
Tuesday - Saturday 10.00 - 19.00
Sunday 12.00 - 18.00
The museum is closed on Mondays.
On Wednesdays, the students can
visit the museum free of admission.
Full ticket: 25 TL
Discounted: 10 TL
Groups: 20 TL (10 people or more)
