Rite of Passage, 2015
Video, 12:27 min
A group of children on the verge of adolescence unwittingly dance the steps of an ancient pagan ritual. The ground – terra incognita, the time circular, the dance cyclical, their movements nimble but hesitant, each one’s hand tied with a coloured ribbon to the head of a pole that stands at the centre. With every round the children com- plete, another piece of fabric is interlaced and wrapped around the totem-pole at whose top, above the traditional decorative wreath, Landau has installed a camera. When the interlacing is done it will be time for unravelling; it is a cyclical ritual, between creation and decline, social order and sexual anomie, between childhood and maturity and the (counter-Jewish) traditions of spring and the joys of nature.