European? - I see you

Experimental video, dv, 1min20sec, color, sound, 2007

the bright eyes that turn toward you and then look you straight in the beginning of European. Overhead, there is a bustle of voices saying ‘Europe’, but the faces themselves are silent. Then there are images from paintings, and more faces, and photos taken from magazines. In one minute and a half, a cloud of eyes has been looking at you.
I had an impression from European paintings, all of very white, beautiful women. From that one gets  an impression of what the European woman looks like. And then when I walked the streets I was struck by how different the faces are. The photos that I’ve matched together are really from rather plain women.

I only used the eyes. But I wanted to show what the European face really looks like.
I wanted to use paintings as a symbol for European culture before, because when Asians think of European culture they always think of paintings. When they come to Europe they go straight to the museum. They associate Europe with music and paintings. Then music is hard to visualize so it had to take paintings.