In his work The Netherlands is respectful. Russia is corrupt Stromajer is in search for current verdicts about the different countries from East and West Europe. Stereotypical sentences and surprising quotes are running across the screen in two hard lines, two subtitles in front of a black hole. The top one symbolises Western Europe, the bottom one Eastern Europe. This hierarchy in form seems harsh and inevitable, divided by the black background, without colour or light, but changes when reading the phrases. The speed of the sentences makes the words tumble, meanings are inter-changing and Europe becomes again one. According to Stromajer: Politics is the poetry of today.
This work was created as part of Visual Foreign Correspondents - a monthly series of audiovisual artworks for the public screen and online, relating to The Globalised Crystal Ball, an international debating program in De Balie, Amsterdam. Distinguished artists from around the world are invited to give their personal visual commentary on events and situations from their local perspective.