2006
video installation: wood-facade construction 6mx6mx3,5m; neon, seven green boxes | dvd-video on 16:9 LCD screen, sound | HD video 21min. | Commissoned by Liverpool Biennial International 06 | Tate Liverpool 2006

A film about residential areas as build models of society, about utopia and the believe how the future could be better, about the hope to come through even the most severe and desperate times. A film about the rise and fall of a city.
A Better Tomorrow is made of situation shots (short clips) of different residential areas in and around Liverpool; residential areas from Victorian townhouses, to housing compounds of the industrial revolution period, dock-workers communities, to modernistic apartment buildings and high-rises, gated communities, to looted and abandoned residential areas, about contemporary loft apartments and today’s inner city revitalisation.
These clips are interrupted by short sequence of a green image (green-screen colour).
A Better Tomorrow is presented in a construction of two different models of housing; a contour of a single family house interlocked with the facade of an apartment building.

Text excerpt:
…this is a piece about hope – my parents moved back – here I sit – looking at the remains – of the things they- left – – – even though they always talked about it I guess I regarded it more like a ‘dream’ like something one says – something to ‘postpone’ – to keep something alive – something that makes ‘now’, ‘today’ worth living – tomorrow

my parents grew up in the Chinese version of communism – it was a model of not only a different country – but also a different society – a different possibility of how a society could function – how people could live together – different models of possession – of moving up – of wealth, of standards moving – from a society that was seeking a classless, non-private-property utopia to a society which has its values in saving, in status through accumulation and increasing personal wealth

society promoting hard-work – saving money to create a home – a house – a family – – saving money for retirement – – like my uncle working for his promise – life was based on the prospect of tomorrow – like waiting for the week-end, the next holiday or ones pension – like ones savings account – like life insurance….

posters and images passing through the car window as I drove by promised a future to be seen here and there

each of these were models of utopia – of a different life, of how a society could function – not failed but simply never achieved…

>Tate Liverpool
>Liverpool Biennial

Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial 2006; Installation view Tate Liverpool 2006
Installation photograph © Tate 2006; photograph #1, #2 by Alexandra Wolkowicz; #3 by Roger Sinek.