Berlin
Bonanza

It is the smallest registered town in Colorado, America, perhaps the smallest town in the world. With five friendly houses and the Rocky Mountains at its feet. The name echoes the Wild West, gold rush, cowboys, weather-tanned faces and television pictures from childhood days: Bonanza.

The “Bonanza” of Belgian artist group Berlin is a unique film portrait of a largely abandoned former silver mining town. Long gone the days when six thousand people lived there – regular customers in thirty-six saloons, seven dance halls, and a sizeable number of prostitutes. When the motto was – get there, get rich and get out. Seven inhabitants remain.

Bonanza is a microcosm, a world of its own. Submerged in seclusion and spirituality, in suspicion, accusations, gossip and fear. In the roughly one square kilometre of the town live a married couple who are constantly arguing with the neighbours, a widow suspected of being a witch, a self-sufficient, deeply religious nature boy, and a priest who constantly reads. And ‘the strangers’: a lesbian couple newly arrived, who see elves and cultivate esoteric rituals.

With a scale model and five film monitors, Berlin paint a portrait of this miniature world and seven loners damned to community, with their different strategies of finding happiness but still without being able to avoid calamity.

Konzept / Idee: Bart Baele
Konzept / Idee: Yves Degryse
Konzept / Idee: Caroline Rochlitz
Fotografie: Bart Baele
Fotografie: Nico Leunen
Künstlerin / Künstler / Gruppe: Koen De Ceuleneer
Künstlerin / Künstler / Gruppe: Berlin