Erik Blinderman

Erik Blinderman has lived and worked in Berlin since 2004, and frequently collaborates with artist Lisa Raves, with whom he runs Whole Wall Films. The Villages (2011), which they made together, presents two geographically distinct communities as they begin to merge into a singular fictive space. The film focuses on a retirement community, also called The Villages, and the former German colonial town of Swakopmund in Nambia, which most recently appeared as the setting for the remake of British sci-fi television series The Prisoner. Blinderman & Rave portray the reconstruction and idealization of colonial histories by capturing the architecture, borders and social relations of both communities, ultimately representing a dystopian space of ever-evolving social segregation within the communities and plotting the transformation of tourism into everyday life. Their latest project, Americium (forthcoming), which looks at a contested nuclear storage facility on the Yucca Mountain, is a take on the American West. Both works deal with older forms of Empire and the fantasies they generate. 

Blinderman studied at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt and was an Associate Artist with LUX. Recent exhibitions include Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin (with Lisa Rave, 2011); Wien Kunstlerhaus, Vienna (2010); and Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on-Sea (2009). 

Courtesy of Chisenhale Gallery