AMERICANS IN BERLIN 2003: AMI SIOUX
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About This Video
Americans in Berlin 2003: Ami Sioux. She came to Berlin from Paris, could not afford her apartment, arrived for an exhibition and got stuck. Squatted for six months in an office building with no hot water through the coldest winter of her life. She was on Hester Street in New York on September 11, 2001. The interview was filmed on September 11, 2003. Van was 28 years old, living in Berlin for the Sachs installation at the Deutsche Guggenheim.
Transcript
oh my God in 2003 I lived in burlin as part of Tom Sax's nsis installation at
the Deutsche gugenheim I was 28 years old and I had a social life there and through friends I met a bunch of
Americans who were living in Berlin at the time this was two years after September 11th 2001 and I began filming
these interviews on September 11th 2003 so when did you come to Berlin then
I came to Berlin a year and a half ago actually yeah almost two years how come you came to
Berlin um it's kind of a long story I actually came here for an exhibition of my work of photographing and um I was living in
Paris I couldn't afford the rent of my apartment I came here to do an exhibition and also to um come kind of help these people out Consulting to
start a sort of gallery music space and um I came here and they actually didn't have any money and I got
stuck here so it's kind of like it's not exactly I didn't actually choose to come
to r i was pretty happy was living in D but I came here and I got completely
stuck so I was like um well at first I squatted for 6 months I was living in an
office building and I just met people and then I got my first apartment started working
doing whatever I could so I went from being in New York after September 11th like going to Paris not being able like
cuz I pretty much lost everything so I had no money so I came ended up ended up here homeless when I completely and I
was living in an office building with no hot water and I had to like make hot water
and like the coldest winter I've ever been through in my life and which part of town was this in it was actually on a ranburger CL this is 2 years ago so it
wasn't like so built up and I was living on the top floor with this old building so you just said that you were
in New York on September 11th yeah yeah where were you I was on Hester Street um where I was living at that point I had
already left New York in February the year before because I told everybody that if Bush was president I would leave and so I left I moved to Paris in
February of 2001 I came back to New York September 9th because I had um an exhibition of my new book in New York
and um I was staying with my old partner in Chinatown so I was in
Chinatown so Hester is in Chown yeah Hester Street between foresight and Grand really close to the offramp
of um the Brooklyn brid so what happened that day like what
do you remember about it many things um well the first the first plane knocked me out of bed it was
that close I mean I was right in Chinatown at the bottom of at the end of of Canal Street and I felt it I mean it
didn't I mean it's I wouldn't say that actually physically knocked me out of bed but it felt like um it felt like I don't know like
10 garbage trucks because you know everybody knows the feeling and sound of garbage trucks in New York it felt it felt like 10 trucks hit each other at
once and it was just really like one of those kind of like when you hear a car crashing but it was very very solid in
the earth and inside of you and I got up immediately and so then you watched the rest of it I started yeah I started
watch I of course like I I'm actually it's it's kind of funny because I I have a thyroid problem and so for the first
hour of every day like I take this medicine when I wake up and for the first hour every day I'm like a complete zombie coming to life so I can't even
put like one leg into a boot you know like it's it's really funny actually people have got a lot of humor out of it
but um um so like the first hour well I mean I got out of the house like I think like
under a half an hour but the first hour was like I was completely out of it and um I saw the first bits on TV after the
first plane had hit and nobody thought anything would come down and I put on my clothes and went outside and I was standing right at the um corner of Canal Street right at the end of the bridge
and saw the second plane hit and it was just it was ridiculous it was like I
mean I think that resonate the thing that resonated for me the most that I probably said the most or felt the most was that when I saw it I didn't didn't
believe it I didn't think it was real and that's the thing that haunted me for the
longest was that like I had seen so many planes crash into buildings ever since I
was a child in Hollywood films that I was so conditioned to it I just stood there like everybody else said the same
word [ __ ] and didn't feel a [ __ ] thing I didn't feel it I didn't feel anything I was scared I was shocked
in fact hours afterwards I went down and volunteered in fact I was a volunteer at Ground Zero for 10 days I was right next to it but I was still I was right there
I was feeding firefighters I was like next to the whole thing like that image will never be out of my mind but I didn't feel
anything it was so numb it was a a conditioned Numb numbing that I don't
like took me years to figure out I don't even know if I've still figured it out anyway I'm not answering your question no I'm sorry I'm going off that's
perfect um and so was the house that you were living in was that area evacuated was it too close um it was it wasn't
that it was evacuated it's that nobody could go below 14th Street and so we were kind of it was a different set of
people I mean there was a lot of people who were above 14th or above 30 35th was
it 35th was like they cut it off at at H 14th and 35th and in order to get below those points you had to have a ID that
you lived there and um so like for example like after the first after the second day I came out and I was running
um I was running food from the um from the Pier 39 Pier 59 Pier 59 um to
the I can't remember the place it's like in the big Armory building and like people up there I was so shocked like above 35th Street people
were like going to the cafes and going to restaurants and going to nail salons and Below 14 Street we were completely in like in a totally different
world it was evacuated it was everybody had masks on everybody was in this I
mean the image I think I I can explain the most is just like standing in the in the middle of Broadway and I had the ID
so I could get down oh I'm sorry sorry I'm sorry I was I I had my ID so I
could get downtown right so it's hon and Broadway everybody knows that corner it's blockaded off there's like a
thousand people there and I had the idea I I had to go home so I gave the ID and I came down the street and the whole
Street's empty and I look back up and there's the blue Blockhead and just like thousands of people just looking at me and I walked down Broadway just
completely there there's nobody on the street that was the most like that's the image for me and the weird thing is is
that I'm a photographer and I didn't I didn't shoot hardly anything I just it's just like there wasn't any words to put
onto this or or that like the images will never be out of my mind you know like I think I learned as a photographer that sometimes the most important images
you take are the ones you never take yeah so it was yes it was I was evacuated it was evacuated sorry I go
off a lot it's just that like one memory cuz this is such an amalgamation of these points where and I'm very good at
survival reactions because I've been in that motive since I was a kid I've been homeless I've been like in so many crazy situations in my life that I'm really
good at like okay we have to do this we have to do that but this was so strange and everything was it was so full of
this facade of unreality that like I couldn't deal with it and all like one memory will go into another memory and that's why I think I'm talking that
abstractly go ahead sorry so um how long was it after this
that you left New York I got out in October I was in ground zero for 10 days
I went straight down um on September 11th I was there I slept for 20 you know I was on the street at where the volunteers were we slept there all night
waiting to come in and in fact they brought us in the first day but they brought us in too close and the the second um that big big building went
down number six building when I was um two blocks away and so with like thousand people in the street all volunteers I ran down the street and
that's when it came really alive for me as well you know then I left and um that night they said we don't know if anybody can come
in so I went home and St for like 2 hours and I came back and then I got in and it was really weird I mean I was put
in charge of a group of 15 civilians I was paramilitary it was a captain of these team of kids who went down to the
Burger King and started flipping burgers and feeding firefighters and setting up the the first and only this is what
something I'm totally proud of so I'll go off for a very short period of time but like basically they didn't know what to how to deal with this because they
didn't know if it was a national federal City or whatever so all those different agencies FEMA [ __ ] FBI everything else they didn't know who was supposed
to deal with it so for 3 Days down there there was no food there was no supplies there was nothing the people who brought
the stuff in were a bunch of [ __ ] punks kids from downtown who were on their cell phones and I can say this
because it's true they were on their cell phones calling restaurants getting I was like we were like getting like permission from restaurants they could get through and bring big plates of food
for the firefighters and every single agency that came in tried to close Burger King down but the firefighters would stand in front of the door and
just like me need these girls back off it was amazing we had like petitions every day that we had to have signs all the guys they were like yeah yeah keep
the chicks there they loved us they needed us they came to us and cried they we set up the First Medical Center down
there and started bringing in things to like just clean their eyes cuz their eyes were scratched from all the asbest and you wouldn't believe it it was just
like one of the most [ __ ] up situations so but I was proud in some ways that like in that kind of
structured thing where something went down that that that in some ways like an act of Anarchy actually helped it actually worked so that
was I don't know nice I don't remember your question cuz I went off on the Burger
King it's great when uh you just go off cuz it's perfect you know saves me a lot of thinking a lot of questions but let's
um just cuz we're on sometime constraint constraints right now let's just move on to Berlin um like can you shut the door
so I can hear you more is it sorry sorry I'm just kind of
[Music] loud you know people work in the work in the Shell they're curious what's going on back here um we're doing an interview
with the toilet so you've been here for a year and a half um does that mean you like Berlin more than anywhere in America I mean or what do you like about
Berlin right now versus America I had already left New York for a lot of reasons I had been in New York
for you know almost seven years and I had developed a lot of the professional side of what I do as a photographer and
I had lived New York you know I had been through it I was questioning my own work in a lot of ways and relationships to the Industries already set up in New
York and the way that the constructs of the the way the construct of New York like the way that it works the way that produces all of this was coming to a
Forefront in my work like is this important or not to be in New York um when I left New York it was for
political reasons definitely because I don't feel that my I don't feel like I can even be there physically and support
what's happening right now because I will not pay tax dollars I will not pay anything that will go into what that Administration is doing right now even
my physical presence in that country I just won't do it and that's my personal like protest or whatever it's worth you
know but um Berlin has given me the chance because it's very cheap here it's given me the opportunity for the first
time of my life because I have been like I grew up a really poor person in America I grew up with Al healthare without like anything in America I've
completely come from the street and made you know like a lot of people in New York of course I'm not saying I'm the only one but like it doesn't give you
the opportunity ever New York or America to just like slow down for a second think about what you're doing take a
second look at it and construct it in not just a survival kind of reactionary way and I think that I mean after 15
years of being my own I've constructed a lot of the ways that I've moved and learned and done things especially in the relationship to New York in a very
survivalist way which is like throw this at me I can handle it boom here boom and here it's just slower I mean sometimes it's very hard for me here because it's
really slow and I have a difficulty with just like I miss the feeling of New York I miss the movement of this of a city
you know it's not really a city here it's kind of like a village but it's not like living in the suburbs so it offered
to me like a health I mean it is also healthier here there's lots of trees here they don't they don't spray the
city with pesticides you know I developed a rare thyroid disease because they sprayed the city with the West Nile
Virus for 2 years you know after that I it's like the city's great but healthwise and I don't know I mean
there's a point where I had to actually think about it because I started getting very sick from New York in a lot of ways so I mean I would say it's probably like
getting 30 and like thinking about my health and stuff like that but New York in some ways like didn't offer that for
me I paid $2,000 a month rent you know I was hustling I never stopped hustling in New York and what are you paying now in
I pay 300 which is just Wicked I mean I haven't paid that since I was in college in San Francisco in like early '90s you
know and what's the space like here versus the space you had in New York double the
size so I have a studio I actually wake up in the morning I have a studio where I can work I can do my drawings I can
set up ideas for studies I can actually shoot in my space I don't have to live in a
box but I miss the city and that's something you can't create out of having more physical space
to live in it's just the diversity it's the movement it's the air it's the feeling it's just Manhattan it's like I
don't know you get it under your skin and it's the the strongest drug you'll ever take it's [ __ ] good so there's
a I mean I miss my language too you know I'm a crazy New Yorker I come out I feed off of that frenzy it's
a part of me it's the way I communicate I'm like here it's it's germanish advice you know it's like doesn't have to do
anything with me so I'm a Voyer and I'm an outsider but I've been an outsider for so long in my life everywhere I've
ever lives so it's not anything new speaking of language differences do you find that um you mainly hang out with other
Americans or do you have a multi-national group or do you hang out with a lot of Germans as well or I
actually have only German friends it's weird my close friends my partner Andy my best friend Patty they're
German um when I first came here I didn't even meet any Americans I have a I have a like two Americans that I
know but everybody I have to say like as an exp Patriot what they call what they call us you know I find that each person
is really dealing with something like when they're coming out of their country is like they're dealing with something rather than like you know a Spanish
person visiting Berlin is like they're a European they're moving in their own construct but an American from somewhere
is either dealing with somebody on holiday or kind of like trying something new they're not really like inside of their life they're like really outside
of it where I don't feel that I don't know I don't feel side side side to side to that because I've just like I live a
really parallel I mean I live a really like linear life because I don't have anything to go back to like I don't have
family or home anywhere so where I am is where my home is so I find like a lot of these kids are like but I'm still going
back home for the holidays so I don't ever get I don't know I don't find communication with a lot of Americans
but I never did there's a few of course and it's mostly the wolves or the gypsies that I feel close to or like old
Street kids and stuff and are you working on major projects right now um actually why don't you tell us where we are where are we
right now we're in the Googy night bathroom so you can hear this got sound
effect um and um I'm going a DJ so that's kind of like this fake side
project cuz I've never djed and I have six records but everybody knows a DJ so
it's like this joke I got this DJ uniform no um I'm working on two major
projects one is really finding the a new voice in my photography really pushing myself pushing the light pushing my relationship with fashion I've been a
fashion photographer for almost 10 years I don't know if I find anymore I'm like taking that construct of what I think I
am and pushing everything and secondly can I just finish
please finding this voice and the new voice new photography and
um I'm going to lose it now um okay yeah no I'm um I'm really taking the time to find my voice in my new
photography and um secondly I've just finished shooting a uh it's a it's kind of a portrait of Berlin I'd felt like a
lot of people had come to Berlin from the outside from Paris from London and they were acting like oh Berlin's the hyp place to be and they would have this
Viewpoint to what Berlin was for them so I asked 50 berliners to draw me a map to a place that was important to them and
it's all people who grew up here I know a lot of people who grew up in the gdr and like what you see is the book is constructed of all these handdrawn maps
on the left and on the right is the location I went to these Place using the maps and then I portraited each person so it's an intimate portrait of Berlin
it's a inside kind of very soft Viewpoint of people who've grown up here and seen these various aspects that you don't see from Alexander plats so it's a
very special quiet point and I working on getting it published right now I've had a lot of interest from Japan but
they don't have the money to do it so that's my next page and I'm finished now I love it that was a great great interview thank you baby
People Referenced
Ami Sioux, Tom Sachs, Brandon Rivard