Window to Paradise consists of a black-and-white image installed as a wall vinyl. 

Through a conceptual synthesis between two locations that share the same name - Copacabana, one in Dubrovnik and another in Rio de Janeiro -, the piece looks into linguistic and physical patterns surrounding today’s commodification of our social ecosystem. 

Bringing attention to the intense international circulation promoted by an ever-growing travel industry, the geographical references are replaced by a fragment of architecture, reflecting the sky, which in turn, belongs to everyone. 

In the piece, Copacabana is advertised through an inverted gaze, while the title hints to marketing strategies so often present in neoliberal societies – the fake promise of an idyllic tropical paradise, as well as the semantic appropriation geared towards profit. 

The wall installation brings the work to a constitutive part of the exhibition space, cultivating its architectural character. In ‘Window to Paradise’, we cannot see the beach under the frame, nor the Carnival fervently occupying every inch of sand.

Photography taken during the Carnival at Copacabana beach, Dubrovnik (Croatia), 16.02.2020. 

The work was created for an exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Rijeka. The exhibition was cancelled due to the coronavirus. https://mmsu.hr/en/event/bianca-hisse-2/