With a bird in a cage on my back I walked 90 km from the center of São Paulo to the Atlantic coast.

I started my journey in the historic, partly worn out center of the South American Metropolis, and then passed through the town’s lively financial district, the “Gated Communities” of the upper class with its expanding shopping malls and well-kept parks. Then I moved on to the industrial area and the favelas of the poor, slowly leaving the densely populated parts of town behind.

Walking on my journey led me to the wilderness of the “Mata Atlântica”, the rainforest with its indigenous people, the Guarani, who still live a very traditional life. On the fourth day I reached my final destination, the Atlantic coast.

In silence I had passed the diverse world of Brazil’s South with its plurality of social levels, its rich landscapes and diverging concepts of life – in a distance of only 90km and a time period as short as four days.

The title of my video, Wie ich meinem Vogel die Welt erkläre [How to Explain the World to my Bird], pays homage to Joseph Beuys’ work, Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt, [How to explain the pictures to the dead hare] (1965). With my video I refer to his expanded concept of art (“Erweiterter Kunstbegriff”) and aim at recontextualizing my being on the road.

camera: Bruno Schultze
sound design: Boris Laible