Video, color, sound, 22:00, 1994

In 1992 I was in Czechoslovakia at the same time that the country ceased to exist. One year later, I returned to the newly divided country, to interview residents living on the new border between the new Czech Republic and Slovakia. This video not only documents the changes in everyday lives wrought by the so-called “Velvet Divorce” of 1992, but also reveals my status as an outsider, attempting to comprehend changes viewed as ‘sad but inevitable.’ Ten years after finishing this video, both Czech Republic and Slovakia have joined the EU. Little reference is now made to the once-united country, brought together not by the Soviet Union, but by Thomas Masaryk’s hopeful appeal for unification. In the 21st century, this story of the silent breakup of one nation should not be forgotten.