DEAR CURATOR CURATE ME

Kristoffer Ardeña

 

Detailed List of Films and Videos

No. Title Artist Origin Duration Year Produced 1. The End Agnieszka Pokrywka Poland/Norway 8.58 minutes 2009

2. Empire (ABS-CBN) Michelle Dizon USA 30.00 minutes

2010

3. Miten marjoja poimitaan (How to Pick Berries)

Elina Talvensaari Finland 19.00 minutes

2010

4. 5 Lessons and 9 Questions about Chinatown Shelly Silver USA 10.00 minutes

2010

5. Kathy’s Funeral Slideshow Anonymous USA 4.42 minutes 2010

6. Sunday (E)scapes Dada Docot Philippines/Canada

30.00 minutes

2010

7. Nijuman No Borei (2000,000 Phanthoms)

Jean-Gabriel Périot

France 10.51 minutes

2007

8. Chu men (Outing)

Jow Zhi Wei Singapore 18.00 minutes

2009

9. A Place to Live Anonymous USA 24.42 minutes

1948

10. Tracing Trade Jane Jin Kaisen Denmark 38.00 minutes

2006

11. Robbins and Meg’s Spectacular Sweden and Norway Adventure

Robbins Barstow USA 37.27 minutes

1982

12. Manola coge el autobús (Manola Takes the Bus)

Sally and Gabriela Gutierrez

Spain 12.20 minutes

2005

13. A Fossilized Moment of Doubt Guston Sondin-Kung USA 32.50 minutes

2011

14. Zansho no Oto (Still Hear the Wound)

Soni Kum North Korea/South Korea

23.00 minutes

2009

15. 15-M Eduardo Fernandez

Spain 8.27 minutes 2011

The End

8’58” / 2009 Agnieszka Pokrywka

Poland

The End 8’58” / 2009 Agnieszka Pokrywka Poland Trailer: http://vimeo.com/7374525 The End reverses war. It is a short film based on the documentary footage inspired by films from the 1940s and was inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s satirical novel Slaugterhouse-Five, also known as The Children’s Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) about WWII experiences. The soundtrack consists of reversed fragments of Richard Wagner’s The Valkyrie.

Agnieszka Pokrywka Born in Poznan (Poland). Currently lives and works in Trondheim (Norway). Pokrywka is an artist, filmmaker, graphic designer and researcher. She finished her degree in Art Criticism and Animation at the Poznan Academy of Fine Arts and studied Computer Simulation at the Poznan University of Technology. She is interested mainly in interdisciplinary fields of knowledge related to art and technology. She is currently taking her PhD in software and art at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. She has participated in over 40 collective projects. Most recently, in 2010-11, the Bacarobo Cup in Budapest (Hungary), International Media Art Festival All Art Now in Damascus (Syria), the Stuttgarter Filmwinter to name a few. http://pokrywka.wordpress.com/ http://vimeo.com/agnespockels

           

     

Empire (ABS-CBN) from the series Empire, in Fragments

30’00” / 2010 Michelle Dizon

USA

Empire (ABS-CBN) from the series Empire, in Fragments 30’00” / 2010 Michelle Dizon USA Trailer: http://www.michelledizon.com/index.php?/projects/empire-in-fragments--empire-preview/ Empire (ABS-CBN) is a video of the media broadcasting tower of ABS-CBN, a media conglomerate of the Philippines during the 2009 New Year’s Eve celebration. This video somehow is contextualized within the political history of the Philippines as a former colony.

Michelle Dizon Michelle Dízon is an artist, filmmaker, and scholar. She works between Los Angeles and Manila.

Dizon has had solo exhibitions at the CUE Art Foundation in New York City, the Art Gallery at the University of Texas, Arlington, and the Vargas Museum in Manila (Philippines). Her work has been exhibited in group shows internationally including the Redcat Gallery in Los Angeles (USA), Gallery Loop, Seoul (South Korea), Kor-i-noor, Copenhagen (Denmark), Tate Modern, London (UK), Para/site Art Space, Hong Kong (China) among others.

She holds a BA in English and History of Art from the University of California Berkeley and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studio from the Department of Art at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is completing a Ph.D. in the Rhetoric with designated emphases in Film and Women, Gender, and Sexuality at the University of California, Berkeley and she is a 2010 fellow at the Human Rights Center. http://www.michelledizon.com/

       

       

Miten marjoja poimitaan

(How to Pick Berries) 19’00” / 2010

Elina Talvensaari Finland

Miten marjoja poimitaan (How to Pick Berries) 19’00” / 2010 Elina Talvensaari Finland Trailer: http://vimeo.com/21383601 Savukoski is a municipality in northern Finland that has experienced a puzzling change. Some years ago the local berry company started collaborating with berry pickers from Thailand. The nearby villages saw the influx of people from Thailand trying to find an income picking wild berries in the swamps and forests and selling then to the berry company. How to Pick Berries depicts the strange change in people’s lives and identities caused by the global economy. It is inspired in part by Julio Cortázar’s short stories like The Instructions on how to Cry or The Instructions on how to Climb a Staircase. The director is fascinated by his way of depicting the so-called normal things as strange in which nothing is really as simple as it seems.

Elina Talvensaari Born in Helsinki (Finland) where she currently lives and works. Talvensaari began her studies in anthropology and sociology at the University of Helsinki. While finishing her Masters degree she switched to film studies, majoring in documentary directing. How to Pick Berries is the film she made together with Mauro Fariñas for her BFA at the ELO Film School in Helsinki.

How to Pick Berries has been shown at the Venice Film Festival (Italy), Cannes Film Festival (France), San Sebastian Film Festival (Spain), NYMOMA (USA), Festival Premiers Plans d’Angers, IFF Bratislava and the Centre Pompidou (France).

5 Lessons and 9 Questions about Chinatown

10’00” / 2010 Shelly Silver

USA

5 Lessons and 9 Questions about Chinatown 10’00” / 2010 Shelly Silver USA Trailer: http://www.5lessonsmovie.com/ “You live somewhere, walk down the same street 50, 100, 10,000 times, each time taking in fragments, but never fully registering THE PLACE. Years, decades go by and you continue, unseeing, possibly unseen.

A building comes down, and before the next one is up you ask yourself ‘what used to be there?’ You are only vaguely aware of the district’s shifting patterns and the sense that, since the 19th century, wave after wave of inhabitants have moved through and transformed these alleyways, tenements, stoops and shops.

10 square blocks, past, present, future, time, light, movement, immigration, exclusion, gentrification, racism, history, China, America, 3 languages, 13 voices, 152 years, 17,820 frames, 9 minutes, 54 seconds, 9 questions, 5 lessons, Chinatown”

Shelly Silver Shelly Silver Shelly Silver is a New York based video, film artist and photographer. Her work, which spans a wide range of subject matter and genres, explores the personal and societal relations that connect and restrict us; the indirect routes of pleasure and desire; the stories that are told about us and the stories we construct about ourselves. She has been exhibited widely throughout the US, Europe and Asia at venues such as MoMA, the ICP, MoCA, The Yokohama Museum, The Pompidou Center, The Kyoto Museum, the London ICA, The London, Singapore, New York, Moscow and Berlin Film Festivals. Silver has received numerous fellowships and grants from organizations such as the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Jerome Foundation, the Japan Foundation and Anonymous was a Woman. Broadcasts include BBC/England, PBS/USA, Arte/Germany, France, Planete/Europe, RTE/Ireland, SWR/Germany, Atenor/Spain.

http://www.shellysilver.com/

Kathy’s Funeral Slideshow

4’42” / 2010 Anonymous

USA

Kathy’s Funeral Slideshow 4’42” / 2010 Anonymous USA Trailer: http://www.archive.org/details/KathysFuneralSlideshow This video is a slideshow of images of Kathy Cousley’s life: baby pictures, family portraits, high school album photo, during her vacations, wedding photos of her and her husband cutting the nuptial cake, when she was pregnant, with her two daughters all grown up, holding her grandkids, their graduation and their wedding, etc.

The Internet Archive Kathy’s Funeral Slideshow is a home video that was anonymously donated to the Internet Archive website. It is a 501©(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. It was founded in San Francisco, California (USA) in 1996 and offers permanent access for historians, researchers, scholars and the general public to a wide range of historical collections that exist in digital format. www.archive.org

Sunday (E)scapes

30’00” / 2010 Dada Docot

Philippines/Canada

Sunday (E)scapes 30’00” / 2010 Dada Docot Philippines/Canada Trailer: http://vimeo.com/10410460 Password: This film shows the plight of Filipina domestic workers in Hongkong and how they temporarily transform the urban environment of Hong Kong's financial district into their own private space similar to that of the one they perceive to be in the Philippines. As the film unfolds, we see how the Sunday festivals and events are not random, but in fact, a series of well-structured rituals. The women talk about their upheavals, hopes, their families they left behind in the Philippines and the family of friends they created in their adopted country.

Dada Docot She is originally from Nabua, Camarines Sur (Philippines). Docot obtained her Masters in Human Security Studies from the University of Tokyo under a Japanese Graduate Research scholarship. She is currently doing her doctorate at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Her work has been shown in various international venues such as Caixa Forum, Barcelona (Spain), Nu Wave Films Downtown Independent, Los Angeles and at the Visual Arts Theater, in New York (USA), Galleria IndieSine, Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila (Philippines) and at the Kitchen Art Space, Tokyo (Japan). http://dadadocot.kulturavolunteers.org

Nijuman No Borei

(200,000 Phanthoms) 10’51” / 2007

Jean-Gabriel Périot France

Nijuman No Borei (200,000 Phanthoms) 10’51” / 2007 Jean-Gabriel Périot France Trailer: http://www.jgperiot.net/QT/nijumanqt.htm This film takes us through a silent journey to Hiroshima from 1914 to 2006 illustrated by 600 photographs of the Genbaku Dome falls witness to how a dazzling city was annihilated on August 6, 1945 by the atomic bomb called Little Boy and killed 78,000 people only to miraculously survive almost a century later. The dome, which is the protagonist of this film, is revealed to the public in how it has transformed from its process of construction, destruction and its reconstruction and finally becomes a silent symbol of the savagery of war.

Jean-Gabriel Periot Born in France. He has directed several short movies that use animation and documentary in a very experimental style. Nijuman No Borei has won several awards and has been shown extensively: Gran Pix, Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (Japan), Special Mention at the International Film Festival, Milan (Italy), Prix Breizh, Rencontre du Cinéma Européen Vannes (France), Indonesian National Gallery, Jakarta (Indonesia), Kunst Werke, Berlin (Germany), Tate Modern and the Whitechapel in London (UK), Austrian Film Museum, Vienna (Austria) and the Lismore Regional Gallery (Australia) to name a few. http://www.jgperiot.net/

Chu men (Outing)

18’00” / 2009 Jow Zhi Wei

Singapore

Chu men (Outing) 18’00” / 2009 Jow Zhi Wei Singapore Trailer: A grandfather decides to take his grandson on an outing. Through this simple journey, another journey awaits, in a slow-moving and massively rewarding drama.

Jow Zhi Wei Born in Singapore, he was a scriptwriter for a production company that developed programs for television before pursuing film studies at the Puttnam School of Film in Singapore. He has shown his films in various festivals like the San Sebastian Film Festival (Spain), Lens Politica in Helsinki (Finland), LiFest Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Next Wave Festival, Melbourne (Australia), Cinemanila International Film Festival in Taguig (Philippines, Thai Short Film and Video Festival in Bangkok (Thailand) and the International Film Festival of Asian-Pacific Counties in Vladivostok (Russia). http://jowzhiwei.wordpress.com/

A Place to Live

24’00” / 1948 National Committee on Aging (USA)

Prelinger Archive USA

A Place to Live 24’42” / 1948 Anonymous (National Committee on Aging) USA Trailer: http://www.archive.org/details/PlacetoL1948_3 This film was a postwar public service announcement that talks about senior citizens an aging. The plot takes us into the home of a family: husband Jim, his young son Bobby and his wife Dottie. The story revolves around Dottie’s father and the family’s struggle to conduct “normal” family life having to live with him.

The Internet Archive Kathy’s Funeral Slideshow is a home video that was anonymously donated to the Internet Archive website. It is a 501©(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. It was founded in San Francisco, California (USA) in 1996 and offers permanent access for historians, researchers, scholars and the general public to a wide range of historical collections that exist in digital format. www.archive.org

Tracing Trades

38’00” / 2006 Jane Jin Kaisen

Denmark

Tracing Trades 38’00” / 2006 Jane Jin Kaisen Denmark Trailer: http://janejinkaisen.org/ (Please click on the title Tracing Trades to see the video) “Chasing and tracing the history of human trade and trafficking between Korea and Europe, the journey starts with the investigation of the history behind the mysterious Korean Man portrayed in a Peter Paul Rubens drawing. Being bought and brought to Italy by Francesco Carletti, a Florentine mechant in the early 17th century, the Korean Man could well be the first Korean slave and arguably, adoptee, touching European ground. Shedding light upon Korean-European relations, and in particular international adoption, the quest leads to 19th century emigration of Scandinavians to North America, especially to Minnesota, having the largest per capita population of Korean adoptees in the United States. A Department of Alien Affairs starts investigating how the first East Asians came to Scandinavia.”

Jane Jin Kaisen

Jane Jin Kaisen Kaisen explores how history, memory and ideology construct and influence our perception and thinking. She works in a project-based manner whether it be video or performance that radiate around a transnational perspective of postcolonialism, feminism that deconstruct the complex intersections of race, classism and gender issues in order to pose alternative forms of representations. Her projects have been developed in various contexts in different international venues such as the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, New York (USA), The National Museum of Photography in Copenhagen and the Roskilde Museum for Contemporary Art (Denmark), the 6th Kwangju Biennale and Incheon Women Artists Biennale(South Korea), Kyoto Museum of Art (Japan), The National Gallery in Jakarta (Indonesia) and the International Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Los Angeles and Korean American Film Festival New York (USA). http://janejinkaisen.org/

Robbins and Meg’s Spectacular Sweden and Norway Adventure

32’27” / 1982 Robbins Barstow

USA

Robbins and Meg’s Spectacular Sweden and Norway Adventure 32’27” / 1982 Robbins Barstow USA Trailer:http://www.archive.org/details/barstow_spectacular_norway_sweden_1982 Robbins Barstow, his wife Meg from Wethersfield, Connecticut (USA), takes us on their wonderful adventure in Sweden and Norway in the summer of 1982.

Robbins Barstow Born 1919 in Woodstock, Vermont. Died 2010 Hartford, Connecticut (USA). Barstow is a pioneer in creating a genre that lies between home-movies and independent films. He has made more than hundred films spanning eight decades about his family. These films chronicle the mundane aspects of mid-century American life. He made silent films and recited carefully scripted and timed live oral narration whenever they were shown. In later years he added voice-over soundtracks. Robbins joined the Amatuer Cinema League in the 1930s. He also helped to create the Wethersfield public access TV station, the place where he edited and transferred to video his 16mm films. He was an avid advocator of free access video and after learning about the Internet Archive he digitalized and uploaded nearly all of the Barstow Travel Adventures. His films can be watched in The Internet Archive. It is a 501©(3) non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library. It was founded in San Francisco, California (USA) in 1996 and offers permanent access for historians, researchers, scholars and the general public to a wide range of historical collections that exist in digital format. www.archive.org

Manola coge el autobús (Manola Takes the Bus)

12’20” / 2005 Sally Gutierrez and Gabriela Gutierrez

Spain

Manola coge el autobús (Manola Takes the Bus) 12’20” / 2005 Sally Gutierrez and Gabriela Gutierrez Spain Trailer: http://www.hamacaonline.net/obra.php?id=409 The protagonist of this video is Manola, an 87-year-old woman. She takes the bus every morning from Getafe, a suburb in the outskirts of Madrid to the other neighboring towns within the periphery of the metropolis. Both filmmakers have resorted to the visual strategy of dividing the screen into two frames that seemingly merge to form a unified landscape. The first one allows the viewer to focus on the portrait of Manola as she tells us her story. The second, allows us to delve into the visual elements of her surroundings. Through her story she takes us back to the Spanish civil on a journey of courage, optimism and fortitude of how she has managed to survive personal dramas and struggle with poverty all throughout her life.

Sally Gutierrez Sally Gutierrez is a visual artist based in Madrid (Spain). She has developed her career both in Berlin (Germany) and New York (USA) where she lived for 11 years. Her works have been widely exhibited: Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid (Spain), Jeu de Paume, Paris (France), the Whitney Museum, Smack Melon and White Box Gallery, New York (USA) Gabriela Gutierrez Gabriela Gutierrez has a 12-year experience as a television producer, and is currently co-director of Estanción Central Contenidos, a production company where she works on projects both for TV and feature documentary films. This is their first collaboration together.

A Fossilized Moment of Doubt

32’50” / 2011 Guston Sondin-Kung

USA

A Fossilized Moment of Doubt 32’50” / 2011 Guston Sondin-Kung USA Trailer: http://vimeo.com/28883837 Password: “Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania has stood the most productive fossil site for the excavation of early human remains in the twentieth century. For more than thirty years the Leakey family worked at this site and created the narrative of human evolution that is know today. Since there death the site has remained open for scientific work as well as tourism. A Fossilized Moment of Doubt explores the impact of the Leakey’s legacy to the region through another family that has lived in the area for generations. This family has become the part of a “caretaking” team that administers the site. Although trained by the Leakey’s in the theory of human evolution the caretakers live a life dictated mainly by local traditions. This dual existence provides a unique voice that speaks to the positive and negative effects of the Leakey’s inhabiting the geographical and metaphorical space of the Gorge. Though this postcolonial re-framing of history emerges questions of truth, desire and belonging.”

Guston Sondin-Kung

Guston Sondin-Kung Guston Sondin-Kung (1982) has been working as a visual artist primarily working in experimental film and performance. He has exhibited his work at Nikolaj Kunsthal, CCA Kitakyushu Museum, Fukuoka (Japan), MOCA Geffen Contemporary, Scandinavia House, New York and Solway Jones Gallery, Los Angeles (USA). He has also received grants from The J. Paul Getty Museum, Yip Harburg Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation and The Ford Foundation. http://gustonsondinkung.com/

Zansho no Oto

(Still Hear the Wound) 23’00” / 2009

Soni Kum South Korea/North Korea/Japan

Zansho no Oto (Still Hear the Wound) 23’00” / 2009 Soni Kum South Korea / North Korea / Japan Trailer: http://sonikum.com/index.php?/filmvideo/sound-of-remaining-scars/ “Okinawa is at southern tip of the Japanese archipelago. The island once had its own dynasty but was later occupied by Japan in 1879. In 1945, during WWII, more than a quarter of Okinawa's civilian population died. The catastrophe was intensified by Japanese military commanders who have forced "mass suicide" among civilians.

The weak could not kill themselves and therefore used razor and bamboo spears. Fathers killed their sons. Sons killed their own mothers and sisters. People who have remained alive are living through hell, the sense of guilt haunting their lives everyday for murdering their own loved ones.”

Soni Kum

Paintings by: Iri Maruiki and Toshi Maruiki. Poem written by Koukichi Nakaya, an Okinawan poet, who committed a suicide at a young age. He wished independence for Okinawa. His poem was inserted in the music composition by Yuji Takayashi. Song title: The Last Note. Written by: Koukichi Nakaya (1939-1966) from his posthumous manuscript: Name, Stand up and Walk. Music Composition: Yuji Takahashi. Performed by: Suigyu Gakudan

Soni Kum

Kum is an interdisciplinary artist who was born in Tokyo, Japan and raised as a third-generation North Korean.

Kum received her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts (USA) and her PhD from Tokyo University of Arts (Japan)in 2011. Her work has been exhibited at numerous art spaces and film festivals around the world: USA, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Denmark, Germany, Philippines, China, and Myanmar. Kum is currently based in Seoul Korea and Tokyo Japan.

http://sonikum.com/

15-M

8’27” / 2011 Eduardo Fernandez

Spain

15-M 8’27” / 2011 Eduardo Fernandez Spain Trailer: On the 15th of May 2011 a general protest was initiated by thousands of disenchanted people in Plaza del Sol, Madrid, also known as Kilometro-Cero of Spain with an initial call in 58 other cities nationwide demanding radical political and economic change. This protest, referred to as the 15-M Movement, has extended throughout Europe. This film was made specifically as propaganda material freely distributed in Plaza del Sol and also in various Internet social media websites. For further information: http://www.democraciarealya.es/ http://es-es.facebook.com/democraciarealya

Eduardo Fernandez Born in Bilbao and grew up in Galicia (Spain), Fernandez has developed his skills as a visual artist and musician in Belgium, Brazil and Spain. Armed with only a small digital camera, he usually takes videos and photos of sociopolitical events taking place like the protests in Madrid, the abandoned neighborhoods in Ferrol, Galicia, the currently elections in Spain and Hotel Madrid, the squat mobilized by some of the initiators of the 15-M Movement close to Plaza del Sol. He has also recorded various albums in collaboration with other musicians. http://www.eduardofernandez.net/ http://soundcloud.com/fucktheblonde http://soundcloud.com/dufpearl