VITORIA-GASTEIZ.- Artium Museoa presents Looking Through a Circle in a Circle of Looks, an exhibition exploring artistic practices that critically and speculatively reflect on the role of the moving image in constructing stories and representations of otherness —constructed and defined by the West based on an entire epistemological apparatus derived from modernity— that have shaped a diverse tradition of ethnographic cinema. The works featured in the exhibition often deconstruct established methodologies or question image production technologies, although they also place the camera at the service of self-representation.
The project is based on the reflections of filmmaker Maya Deren (Kiev, 1917 – New York, 1961) stemming from her work in Haiti and her decision not to edit the footage she shot during her trips to the island, during which she immersed herself in the world of Vodou. Deren set out her stance in the opening pages of her book Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti (1954): “I had begun as an artist, as one who would manipulate the elements of a reality into a work of art in the image of my creative integrity; I end by recording, as humbly and accurately as I can, the logics of a reality which had forced me to recognize its integrity, and to abandon my manipulations.” This abandonment of the cinematic format in favour of writing provides us with elements to start constructing a critical approach to the representational operations implicit in documentary formats.
The title of the exhibition is a quote from the film Reassemblage (1982) by the Vietnamese-American filmmaker and theorist Trinh T. Minh-ha (Hanoi, 1952). Shot in Senegal, Reassemblage moves away from any pretence of representing an alien reality in order to reflect on the very act of recording through cinematic technology a series of images overlaid by Trinh’s voiceover. Far from providing an organised and objective explanation of reality, she proposes to “not speak about, but nearby”. The filmmaker states: “What I see is life looking at me. I’m looking through a circle in a circle of looks.” This circle –the camera lens– records those being filmed looking back at the person filming, revealing the complexities of the networks of relationships that are established, mediated by the fluctuating distance between different subjectivities, as well as by desire.
The exhibition therefore provides a genealogy of practices influenced by decolonial thought, cybernetics and feminism. Alongside moving images, it features other works that explore the relationships between what Vilém Flusser termed “technical images” and other artistic practices.
Artists and collectives presents at the exhibition are Sammy Baloji, Louidgi Beltrame, Minia Biabiany, Edgar Calel (in collaboration with Fernando Pereira dos Santos), Lastenia Canayo (Pecon Quena), Raymonde Carasco, Colectivo Los Ingrávidos, Maya Deren, Juan Downey, Sheroanawe Hakihiiwe, Aida Harika, Edmar Tokorino & Roseane Yariana, Helena Producciones, Héctor Hyppolite, Morzaniel Ɨramari, Frantz Jacques "Guyodo", Karrabing Film Collective, Sarah Maldoror, Sueli Maxakali, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Rosalind Nashashibi, Deborah Stratman, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Santiago Yahuarcani. The exhibition is curated by Catalina Lozano, Chief Curator at Artium Museoa, supported by conversations and exchanges with the artist Louidgi Beltrame.
Artium Museoa has also produced a new publication in its #Hitzak series to accompany the exhibition, which includes a curatorial text by Lozano, synopsis of the films and information on the works that make up the exhibition.
