My work is portraits of ordinary people at a pivotal moment in their life at which they reflect and question their achievements, their aims and hopes, and their place in society. These encounters with the lives of ordinary people, immigrants or minorities and their dreams reflect upon structures and conventions of our society aimed at success, efficiency and individuality. They challenge us to rethink and question our cultures' values and desires, the definitions of success and failure within the system, and what is left over of the "American Dream". While the narrative focuses on the story and history of the person, the camera records the subject's everyday environment, home, body language, choice of clothing, music. These observations reveal among other things that the concept of identity is a social construct dependent on cultural and socio-economical circumstances. Although the protagonists of the videos often live in precarious situations, they are depicted with dignity and respect and not simply as victims of their circumstances. The music in the pieces is, in general, chosen by the subjects to further question role models and stereotypes present in popular music. In challenging the definitions of the genre video art and documentary film while deliberately playing with the language and strategies of television, music video and home video, the works address the possibilities and limits of the medium video itself. Exploring the different strategies of representation and mediated depictions of reality the works ultimately reflect on the friction between what we accept as given reality and where fiction takes on. http://www.heidrunholzfeind.com