Working Documents
Narrations of Non-Objective Culture
Exhibition
November 18, 2008 - February 8, 2009
La Virreina Centre de la Imatge
La Rambla 99
08002 Barcelona Spain
Artists of the exhibition:
Natalie Bookchin, Marina Grzinic & Aina Smid, Emma Hedditch, Alejandra
Riera, Maria Ruido, Sandra Schäfer. Project curators:
Montse Romaní and Virginia Villaplana.
The exhibition Working Documents examines documentary and audiovisual strategies of socio-critical intervention. Cinematographic methods such as demontage, the fictionalization of staging, strategies of appropriation, and the narrative of postproduction present themselves as clear symptoms of the post-capitalist era in which the picture document is transformed into a form of critical, open and – in regard to the social context – varied reading.
The lines which Working Documents traverses have to do with gender politics, translation as mediation, and the problematization of historical-cultural referents. They examine the context-related reception of the documentary image, view performance as symbolic geography and propagate strategies of appropriation that call for a collaborative construction of public images.
The necessity of documentation and the production of documents lead to
new narratives that intervene in the Real and overlap the allegedly neutral
concept of direct cinema and the direct filming of events.
What preceded the exhibition for a long period of time were regular meetings
and discussions by the participants of Working Documents, who also
met with protagonists of Barcelona’s social and political life. These
processes have taken on various public forms including film screenings within
the frame of the 16.
Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona (International Women’s
Film Festival Barcelona), debates in the socio-cultural centre Exit and
film screenings with subsequent discussions at the CCCB
(Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona). All these activities
as well as the creation of a wiki on the Internet have become platforms
that allow the dissemination of resources, integrate different artistic
strategies in a social network and situate the documentation within the
context of action and representation.
The exhibition Working Documents is the result of a joint process
in the group. Working Documents presents an itinerary possessing
modular structures. A anagrammatic build-up places each artistic intervention
in relation to the whole.
The video installation stagings, which Sandra Schäfer presents
within the frame of Working Documents, is divided into two parts:
The double projection to act in history takes the development process of
the film Passing the Rainbow as a starting point, newly arranges
the used material, falls back on scenes that do not appear in the film,
reflects on its reception in Berlin and Kabul, and adds rarely shown historical
shots from the archive of Nancy Hatch Duprée and Williams Afghan
Media Project. A mobile cinema installation can be found on the rear side
of the installation.
The films shown here were shot in Afghanistan and Iran and address the construction
of gender relations in their respective social contexts. The mobile cinema
installation can be used by local project groups as a presentation and discussion
platform. The films of the mobile cinema can also be borrowed and thus travel
to different contexts outside of the exhibition space.
EVENTS SUPPORTING THE EXHIBITION WORKING DOCUMENTS:
November 18, 2008:
The one-hour performance of the artist Emma Hedditch We are the signs and
the signal began in the hall of the CCCB and led through the city centre
to the exhibition venue La Virreina-Centre de la Imatge. Supported by La
Alternativa, Festival de Cine Independiente de Barcelona.
November 19 and 20, 2008:
Two days of events dedicated to the production processes, visual structures
and distribution possibilities of the documentary productions presented
in Working Documents. The artists were present.
January 2009:
Presentation of the book Plan Rosebud: sobre imágenes, lugares y
políticas de memoria (Plan Rosebud: On Images, Places and the Politics
of Remembrance), edited by CGAC and the artist Maria Ruido, on her comprehensive
project of investigation; in addition, the presentation of the artist’s
two most recent films.
www.bcn.cat/virreinacentredelaimatge/english/home.htm
www.goethe.de/ins/es/bar/de3870814v.htm
Sandra Schäfer to act in history, 2008
Sandra Schäfer to act in history, 2008
Sandra Schäfer Mobiles Kino: Nacir Alqas
Saya („Schatten“), 1990
Sandra Schäfer to act in history, 2008
Emma Hedditch, We are the signs and the signal,
2008
Nathalie Bookchin, trip 2008
Alejandra Riera, Dans ce monde du concret, 2008
Marina Grzinic/Aina Smid, 2008
