Hero, Princess, Prince

01-07-2010 Hero, Princess, Prince

Hero, Princess, Prince

Ritual human sacrifice, as practised by the Incas, is a universal concept we see reflected in stories of various kinds. For some, the tale is nothing less than the truth; think, for example, of the bible story of how Jesus Christ died for our sins. For others, the story might take the form of a fairy tale, like Anderson's heartrending account of the little match girl. And for many people, their own reality is a story of human sacrifice, although it is not always recognized as such.

But this is not just about major story-tellers and famous myths. Each of us makes a story of our own life. We actually do just four things: we sit, we stand, we walk, we lie down. The rest is all story. In our minds we take everything that has happened to us and will happen to us, and we form it into a coherent whole. Our stories are what we use to communicate with each other, to try to make sense of the world, and to gain some control over death, suffering and life. Life is generous, and there is always some being-some human, animal or plant-that sacrifices itself for others. The film is structured around the principles associated with this. Sequences. Coincidence. Synchronicity. In Hero, Princess, Prince, viewers see a myriad of stories, too numerous to fathom, all of which bring them unexpectedly face-to-face with the Big Stories.

Claudia Sola

About Hero, Princess, Prince, artist Claudia Sola says, 'Sacrificing a child high in the mountains because her death will ensure the future of the king and thus of the state, sounds inhuman to us and like something from the distant past. But has modern man really put this as far behind him as we like to think? Isn't a lot of human behaviour linked to an offering of some kind? Who makes offerings nowadays? What is offered and why? And who then feels they must sacrifice something in return?'

Sola wants the personal to be felt in the wider world. The way that we and the world move in circles around each other, and how the same basic stories keep reappearing in modern versions: this is the core of her work. She tells personal tales against a background of the stimuli with which western man is constantly bombarded. Claudia Sola makes her own photos and videos, but she also uses the World Wide Web to delve into the archives of institutions and libraries all over the world.

Claudia Sola (1974) studied at the Rietveld Academy and was a resident of the Ateliers. She exhibits regularly at home and abroad. Last month her work could be seen at the Photo Festival in New York. It is also included in various collections, including that of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Note for the editors:

For further information or illustrations, please contact:

Marieke de Wolf, Communication Department, tel. +31 (0)10 - 2707181, email mdewolf@wereldmuseum.nl.