BLOCK 3:
Elizaveta Ostapenko - AU! AU! SHARK SOMETHING IS VERY HEAVY
The film is a drawing, which constitutes a report of our time about what is a modern ruin. It explores the distinctive perspectives of realities through visual language. It is an invitation for reflections about the aesthetics of decay and the abandoned architectural space itself. All audio and video materials used in the film were found on the location. This includes the music and cartoon fragments. The title of the film tries to be suggestive bringing everything at an urgent present tense and contributes to the open possibilities of perception of the film.
Katja Verheul - Maiden, 2019
Urban legends in Baku of young girls committing suicide are widespread around the building of the Maiden Tower. One version states that a maiden threw herself out of the tower to prevent the incestuous marriage with the cityís governor, who is often referred to as her father. Another says that the legendary founder of Baku Khusur imprisoned his sister in the tower, who threw herself out of the tower in retaliation. As a result, God created the Caspian Sea to flood Khusurís pastures. One notable reoccurring element in each of the legends consists of kidnapping a valued young woman, such as the first-born or the virgin, and their self-imposed death, which suggests explanations about the origin of the towersí names, but as well about local social beliefs forming collective consciousness. In her video work Maiden by Katja Verheul a group of young girls re-enact, deconstruct and rebuild old myths around the tower to question its meaning today.
Ewelina Węgiel - Willa Rożnowskich/ Rożnowski’s Villa, 2018-2020
Working with archives, reflection on architecture and its relationship with society. Reconstruction of the history of the building, a story from a different perspective. A film related to today's situation in Krakow (Poland), concerning the disappearing spaces that are important to the inhabitants and the transformation of the city into a tourist resort.
Laura Grudniewska - Tears On My Pillow, 2020
Being greatly influenced by the famous Detroit photograph from the prohibition era (1929), which shows the moment of pouring alcohol through the windows of a tenement house, I decided to capture the theme of pouring liquid through the windows of the building. In the history of the twentieth century, such a gesture is purely demonstrative, architecture becomes a canvas for political messages. At the same time, the gesture itself is very organic - the water from the windows - anthropomorphises the facade (you could say the building is crying). Architecture, which is usually a kind of a box, a cover for people, changes its face in one gesture - it becomes a source of the element. In my work, I try to emphasize this dualism even more - in a short, sung ballad - about the act of crying caused by a love failure.
Jesús María Palacios - Labo, 2019
Labo is a walk in the footsteps of memories of the former Workers' University. Francisco Franco in Tarragona. It is not only a visit to its buildings, but also a trip into the memory of the people who lived in them. It is a journey into the past that allows us to better understand the present and the future.
BLOCK 4:
Zuza Banasinska - Living and Studying Together, 2017
The video tries to explore the methods of communication in a dormitory between students who are foreign exchange students and the managers of this place based on the official illustrated dictionary. Behind the illustrated, idealized facade of cultural exchange, the video shows a place resembling a prison, where the basic rules of hygiene and social coexistence are not respected. The status of the building and its inhabitants as those in between means that the residence hall becomes a no man's land, where many people live. Their anonymous but very personal voices can be heard through emotional messages on the crumpled pages on each floor. Written notes fill this place, becoming a bodily marking of the presence of the inhabitants - exactly like the disorder and disorder described in them. The exploration of these messages is carried out by Hausmeister (the caretaker), whose categorical e-mails have been sounded and resound ominously in empty corridors. The video offers a walk through the rooms shown in the glossary and their real equivalents, exploring how communication can be achieved in a place where everyone is just a temporary migrant.
Deborah Perrotta, Davi Mello - Um filme em dois atos / A film in two acts / Film w dwóch aktach, 2020
In A Film in Two Acts, two filmmakers tell two different stories, based on observation exercises and personal impressions. Expressed through sound and editing, these images create life (movement), allowing you to peek into places you've never visited.
Hanna Kaszewska - Greetings from Atlantis, 2017
Atlantis is a mythical land in which allegedly there was supposed to exist an unusually developed civilization. No wonder that for many it has become a kind of symbol of excellence. The ideal to strive for. At the same time, however, Atlantis is a place hit by a catastrophe. Sunken. A little forgotten.
Greetings From Atlantis is a story of coming to terms with reality. However, there is no despair here, only a slight sentiment. The voice suspended in the space of city
courtyards tells the audience its story.
Mauricio Sanhueza - La Casa / The House, 2018
The House is a visual documentation of the decadent nature of the late 1960s building, inhabited by the Peruvian middle class. It is also a self-portrait of the invisible man. Trapped in the four walls in which he lives, he seeks help in the words of the great poet Cesar Vallejo, whose work leads him to a deep abyss.
Anne Linke - PIGEONS AND ARCHITECTURE, 2019
The jury of the European Media Art Festival in Osnabrueck wrote about Anne Linke film:
"The question of how and with whom we want to live forms the basis of many societal concerns. This is inevitably followed by questions of participation - for both human and non-human actors. With a consistent visual language and a personally tinged voice-over, PIGEONS AND ARCHITECTURE opens up a cinematic reflection on participation and marginalisation. With her observation of pigeons, director Anne Linke outlines a precise but often overlooked urban space that manifests itself primarily in the corners and crevices of concrete. Pigeons undermine every
Biographies:
DEMSAM
DEMSAM is a student collaborative group of artists, first formed in 2017 by Elizaveta Ostapenko, Daria Kochetkova, Anastasia Prahova and Marina Shtyk. The group is currently based in Moscow, Russia. DEMSAM’s early work included performance, installation, collage and mixed media works. The recent work has developed at the intersection of video and photography.
Katja Verheul
Born in 1988 in Hilversum (NL), is a filmmaker, visual artist and researcher based in Amsterdam (NL). She graduated with a BFA in Audio-Visual Arts from Gerrit Rietveld Academie (NL) in 2012 and holds an MFA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths University (UK) in 2016. Her research and film projects evolves around performative realities, post-truth, and power structures. She has shown her work at Visions du Réel (CH), Kasseler Dokfest (DE), International Short Film Festival in Hamburg (DE), Dokufest (KS), New Wight Biennial (USA), MAXXI (IT), Yarat Contemporary Art Centre (AZ), Visio at 11th edition of Lo schermo dell’arte (IT) and on Dutch television. She was a resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie (2018-2019).
Ewelina Węgiel
She deals with socially engaged art and film.
In her practice, she focuses on unsystematic, not fully defined knowledge. She is interested in instinct, imagination, intuition, how we understand situations and events and how we react to them. We often react unconsciously, it is particularly important for her to get to know these reactions by delving into the subject as deeply as possible, getting to know the context, people, and society.
She studied art in Krakow, Berlin, and Zurich. Took part in exhibitions in Greece, France, Germany, Poland, Switzerland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and USA.
More information:
Laura Grudniewska
Laura Grudniewska was born in 1993 in Warsaw. A graduate of the Faculty of Media Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Warsaw. In 2016, she defended her Master’s degree with honors in the Studio of Spatial Activities of Mirosław Bałka. Her activities focuses on site-specific areas, video, performance, and painting. Currently at the Art House residence organized by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Important exhibitions: Force Field (accompanying event at Biennale Arte 2019 Officine 300 Giudecca, Venice 2019), Akcja Lublin! vol2 (Labirynt Gallery, Lublin 2018), Narracje #9 (Beach in Brzezno, Gdańsk 2017), Wizualne Spa [Visual Spa] (Błękitny Wieżowiec, Warsaw 2016), The Artists (Zachęta, Warsaw 2016), Wola Warm+Up, (Wola Museum, Warsaw 2016), Videonews (Labirynt Gallery, Lublin 2015).
More information:
www.grudniewska.com.pl
Jesús María Palacios
Born in 1980 in Donostia/San Sebastián (Spain). Jesús María Palacios graduated gaining a diploma in Tourism from the University of Deusto and a degree in Humanities and Audiovisual Communication from the University of Salamanca. MA in Creative Documentary from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Zuza Banasińska
Born in 1994 in Warsaw, graduated from the Faculty of Graphics of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow. In 2017–2018, she also studied in the class of Hito Steyerl at the Universität der Künste in Berlin. Finalist of the Young Wolves Festival in Szczecin, File Festival in Saõ Paulo, Transmission Festival in Kassel, and Marienbad Film Festival, among others. Her works have been shown in many galleries and project spaces around the world, including the WRO Art Center in Wrocław, the Blindside gallery in Melbourne or the Dům Umění Mesta Brna in the Czech Republic. She is currently studying at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam.
Deborah Perrotta
Deborah Perrotta is a Brazilian image maker born on April 8, 1993, graduated in Cinema in São Paulo. She participated as costume designer and art assistant in some cinematographic productions projected and awarded in several international film festivals. The short film A Bolsa (The Bag, 2016) was her first experience as a director and screenwriter. The film was presented at several festivals, among them: Chicago Latino Film Festival, Curta Cinema, CineOp, Curta-SE and Tudo sobre Mulheres where it was awarded as best university short film. She also develops work as a photographer in some experimental projects that reflect her daily life, people, and herself. Her latest photographic project, La virtù di non essere più, was shown at the PHOS art gallery in Turin, in which she was awarded with the audience prize.
Hanna Kaszewska
Born in 1989. Hanna Kaszewska is a multidisciplinary artist, a graduate of the Academy of Art in Szczecin. She perceives the creative process as an attempt to understand the world around her. She believes that art should intertwine with other areas of life. She tries to promote equal attitudes among workers in the cultural sector. In her works, she often takes up topics related to the broadly understood mental health.
Mauricio Sanhueza
Mauricio Sanhueza (b. 1978 in Peru) studied at the University of Lima from 1996 until 2000. He then continued his studies at the Lima visual arts school, Corriente Alterna, graduating in 2006 with top honors. In 2011 he obtained a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from San Marcos University. Since 2004 he has participated in several collective art exhibits and festivals in Peru and abroad. Mauricio’s videos have been screened at many international video-art and experimental short-film festivals and have won many awards.
Anne Linke
Anne Linke (b. 1986 in Munich, DE) is an artist who lives in Hamburg. She studied Photography at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and Time-Based Media at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg. Regarding the city as ecosystem, she is interested in human-animal relations and feminist perspectives on architecture and the urban space. Pigeons and architecture is her first film.