“Of course I’m against it, too” – In 1975, the artist’s grandfather has been stating his opinion on the women’s right to vote on Swiss national tv. That footage has only been found by the artist in 2021, 14 years after his death.

In her work “Dear grandfather (grandfather’s face)” Olivia Abächerli explores the question on how to deal with contradictory feelings towards beloved family members with whom one dissents fundamentally about basic political matters, worldviews and urgencies. This piece is an investigation on such tensions: the video works with and through the tv show’s footage. Like traces of a letter or a “map of thought”, writings and drawings are directly being marked on the grandfather’s face, onto the surface of the very moment of his painful statements. The image is being repeated and zoomed in excessively attempting to achieve opacity and proximity, an understanding that might never be obtained. Thus, the question processually shifts from ‹How to relate?> towards: