The project She Wants Crocodiles was inspired by the online hunt for eponymous crocodiles – wealthy Europeans pursued by young African girls. Zborowska’s interest in this phenomenon addresses identity fantasies: one the one hand, the girls who carefully curate their image as they aspire to a better world, on the other hand – the men, who seek an attractive partner as a confirmation of their financial status.
The reportage theme of a tangled web of financial and gender relations between the Global North and the Global South serves here as a pretext to depict seduction by phantasms of life in a better world and a better social position. In order to stage these relations, Zborowska taps into a music video format, a convention strongly embedded in the imagery of popular culture. This medium allows her to penetrate modern-day visions of happiness, luxury and wealth.
Within the music video structure, the story in She Wants Crocodiles shifts seamlessly between various spaces: a substandard gym with artificial palm trees suddenly becomes a music video set with a dancing black girl, while the very next moment it turns into a party in a private apartment.
The work was presented at the exhibition I Want to Be White for You at the BWA Wrocław in 2010.
(MP)
Year: 2008
Duration: 7'52"
Language: English
Source:
© Julia Zborowska
