When the woman in curlers opens the door, Papa is blown away: Like a breath of air, a storm or tornado, he is blown in and back out. Even in his own apartment he is ungraspable: He grows and shrinks, becomes fragile or threatening, knocks everything down. And then he literally flies away, hurling eggs at passers-by. Caught in all this is his daughter, who at first can only helplessly stand by and who finds it increasingly difficult to visit him – the steps grow higher, the floor turns into chewing gum. Finally, she looks up at the sky and sees him hover there.
What to do when one’s father suffers from mental illness? How to deal with it when the responsibility (of care) switches sides so early in life? Jelena Milunović explores this, using bold, very tender and not always obvious parables. She sets strong colour accents: The depressed episodes are in claustrophobic black and white, the ecstatic highs are colourful free-hand drawings. And the red balloon, which briefly appears in the beginning as a metaphorical vehicle of hope, might point the way to bringing the two of them back together.

Sigmund Freud’s dream symbolism relates birth to water that one – or so he says – either dives into or rises out of. While an adolescent boy gets mysterious phone calls and shyly follows his clique to a shits and giggles party, his mother floods the ever-sparser home with separation anxiety and absurd scenes, mocked by the pompously wall paper pattern with all its curlicues.

What is sacrificed in the name of progress, and who is the one asked to bear this weight? Reflecting on the devastation European e-waste imposes on Ghana, this work questions what physical matter is sacrificed there to ensure digital experiences here. Created by fashion designer and 3D artist Keke Opata, this piece bridges fashion, technology and visual storytelling.

At the beginning Michelle Bastien-Archer shows and comments on photos of her wedding. The African-American and her childhood friend Jermaine were married in the unhospitable visitors’ hall of Sing Sing in 2007. He had been sentenced to 22 years to life for voluntary manslaughter in 1998. Ever since, she has been fighting tirelessly to prove his innocence. Now new documents have turned up that reinforce doubts about the trial’s decisive witness statement. Michelle becomes more confident. She presses even more determinedly ahead with her efforts to get Jermaine released. The camera is with her as if live, for almost a decade.

It feels like a thriller whose script was written by life and the U.S. American justice system. Daily life under exceptional circumstances, scenes from an unusual marriage. Timed phone calls from prison, countless visits to the lawyer, appearances at solidarity events for wrongly convicted African Americans. Michelle works as a house painter for the City of New York, raising her two children alone. We learn in passing that their biological father was the victim of a brutal crime. The portrait of a confident woman who shares her fears and hopes with us emerges.

Is it not unlimited freedom, the most radical form of self-realisation, to exist in every conceivable setting as a flying mythical creature, a sad mouse or a furry figure with an extended naked spine as a tail? In her film, Monika Masłoń moves through different spaces as an avatar, exploring the subject of touching and being touched on VR platforms. Anything our phantasy can imagine can be created from pixels here. The limits of existence can be extended infinitely by a click. But what about human – or avatarian – closeness? Can an emotional signal like shaking hands be simulated in this VR world, despite the complete absence of physical bodies? When I see my avatar being touched, can my body memory suggest that I feel this tactile event even though there is no other physical body?
Masłoń examines these questions with a delicate sense of humour and in exchanges with other avatars. But then we enter a VR space that feels more intimate: She has taken us on a personal date. How does the impossibility of physical touch in a long-distance relationship differ from that in VR? Can a VR date create more physical presence and still the longing for the beloved person better than other forms of communication?

Winter is coming and it gets cold on Lena’s farm. The squirrel pinches something warm from all corners to pad its drey until it is nice and cosy. Rain floods all the meadows and the mice flee from the forest: “Squeak, squeak, where are we to go?” The squirrel quickly recognises the danger and shares its cosy loot with them. A new episode in the KiKA series.