Lonely Dads / The Medieval Hall in UK with disco lights

Invited to submit a project for a medieval hall in the UK, that should have been a  collaboration with either local people or an organization, Annika Ström decided to present a performance based upon the idea of lonely men in their cars, supposed to be lonely dads. Fathers who were divorced and estranged from their children. Starting, as the artist states, from a reflection upon the car as a place of solitude and from her direct experience - a common trait to several of her artworks, here derived from her travels and from her recent experience of moving to England - this project was designed as a collaboration with local Father’s Rights organizations. The artist report and the preparatory collage archived here contains all the details of the performance, of the accompanying music - a popular culture quotation, playing a crucial role as it frequently happens in Annika Ström works - and of the way everything should have been filmed and documented:

“I planned  to get at least 50 Dads. They would drive in to the square outside the medieval hall. One car for each dad. They would stop and remain in their car. They would all simultaneously pull down their car windows and play the same song; The very romantic Pietro Mascagni, as used as the sound track in Raging Bull by Scorsese.

When the song was finished, they were to slowly pull away, head to the motorway in a line towards Southampton, where I also had commission as part of the same project.

We were to hire helicopters to film the motorway, like a “News Copter” where the Lonely Dads would parade with their cars, missing their children.”

Reflecting upon roles and structures inside the families and in the society, here Annika Ström investigate in particular relationships, self-doubts and failures, designing the staging of a dramatic scene where cars would have invaded the historical setting.

The artist also wanted to install enormous disco balls inside the hall, but this project too remained unrealised.
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