No Place Like Home

(2005/2026)

2,30 minutes

Shot on 16mm film at night in 2005, this short film observes Dubai Marina a couple of years before completion. The district was still a construction site, yet already monumental: countless high-rises rising simultaneously, built around the clock, their skeletal frames washed in cold blue work lights. Filmed as a single upward tracking shot, the camera glides past these unfinished towers, drifting by like ruins from the future.

The city appears suspended between promise and desolation. Its ambition is unmistakable, but so is its emptiness. The architecture feels apocalyptic and futuristic at once, evoking a Blade Runner-like vision stripped of neon, populated only by concrete, steel, and light.

In sharp contrast, the soundtrack is an audio collage of local radio broadcasts, advertising slogans, and news bulletins. Disembodied voices speak of property, budgets, ownership, and belonging — “there’s no place like home,” “what’s your budget?”, “go shop, go play” — phrases detached from any visible life. Played against the silent, uninhabited structures, these messages acquire an eerie, almost sinister tone.

No Place Like Home was filmed during an artist residency at Sharjah Art Foundation in 2005.

Director of Photography, Jonas Mortensen

Sound Design and Mix, Mikkel H. Eriksen

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