Holiday Shot

In a five week holiday to the Philippines, Eva Meyer-Keller took her video camera but forgot her charger and couldn't find one there. The battery she'd taken with her would only let her film five minutes. And so she had to think very carefully about what she wanted to preserve in those five minutes. There were a series of occasions that came into question: an international cock-fighting championship, drinking fresh coconuts with her family, fishing, enjoying the sun on a white beach with turquoise water or visiting an abandoned palace that Marcos had built twenty five years previously. In the end Meyer-Keller decided on the following five minutes:

It is my last evening in the Philippines. My partner's aunties (titas) and uncles (titos) come over to say goodbye to me. Tito Baby has travelled all the way across Manilla with his 45 calibre pistol in order to show me once again how to shoot, so that I can film it. I'd wanted to do it since we were with him a few weeks ago at a shooting range. Tito Baby was an officer in the Philippine Army and had taught lots of people how to shoot. In 1989 he took part in an attempted putsch against president Corazon Aquino and was jailed for five years. During our time in the Philippines, he invited us to stay with him and generously showed us the country.

Holiday Shot is part of the artists' video series HOMEMADE curated by Tim Etchells and Vlatka Horvat and was first shown in 2003 at Mousonturm in Frankfurt.