Amsterdam reconstruction - Breda

In the frame of the Photography Festival: Breda Photo 2008 - Heimat Hotel

The opening of The Experience of Atopia is on 26th september 20H00

Film screening on 27th September 20H00

still from "Amsterdam reconstruction"

Exhibition on 26th september 20H00

The Experience of Atopia

Exhibition and Film Programme curated by Delphine Bedel.
With Kamal Aljafari, Delphine Bedel, Rossela Biscotti, Renata Poljak, Ilya Rabinovich

Film Programme include Mounir Fatmi, Jérôme Schlomoff, Ayako Yoshimura  

With a very singular and strong photographic or cinematographic language, the works presented in the exhibition
and the films selected for the screening, investigate the urban or political transformation -that occurred in the diverse
contexts addressed by the artists- and draws unexpected and complex relations between personal memory, history
and experience.  

Personal narratives reflect upon historical and political changes, which often find a translation into specific
architectures, places and images. Buildings, industrial sites, holiday location or family houses become the central
character of the works presented. The 'return to place', the recall of familiar locations and images or film  becomes a
subtle movement between architectures of memory and placelessness. Atopia, as defined by Roland Barthes, is a
singular place that resists taxonomy, stereotypes and territorialisation.It is a place in movement. The exhibition offers
a reflection upon the transitory structures of cultural representation and the experience of atopia,  

Parallel to the exhibition, a film program will be presented in another location during the festival. These films present
unexpected perspectives on the inescapable process of urban transformation, from the city of Amsterdam to the
French suburbs or the megalopolis.  Often made out of still images, and constructed on visual athese films reflect upon urban palimpsests and globalization.

Film screening on 27th September 20H00

‘Amsterdam Reconstruction’

The Netherlands, 2007 black and white, video, 20'

A walk through the cultural ruins of the city of Amsterdam. Using a 35mm film tray with a pinhole, Schlomoff captures
the empty halls of the Stedelijk Museum, the Rijksmuseum, Gallery W139, and the cinema of Maison Descartes. It is
surprising to see how quickly you recognise the function of these rooms, even without the art works. The lay-out, the
white walls and the filtered light streaming in from above immediately carry you into the sacred world of the visual
arts. To highlight the power emanating from all these buildings for the arts, Schlomoff draws a parallel with the
dynamics of the Amsterdam harbour, where ships and cranes dance to the rhythm of the filmmaker's voice as he
counts down the seconds he needs to expose each frame. 
"At first I just wanted to make movies but I didn't have a camera so I decided to build one myself, using the concept
of the camera obscura. I made my first camera entirely out of cardboard. Later I found an old aluminium charger of
35mm film in a second hand store. I had it altered so that I could forward the film manually, frame by frame. I
replaced the shutter with the pinholed sheet of brass. This charger can contain 100 feet of 35-mm film.  What
interests me here is to explore the fragility of the image in order to weaken our certainties. My cinematic vision offers
a different image of the human who treads the city and of his imprints on the places that he has abandoned long
ago, such as urban and industrial fallows and the deserted countryside." J. Schlomoff

 

Lokaal 01, Breda  
26.09 - 26.10.2008


General Information

Dates:  
26 September – 26 October 2008
Opening 19.09.2008, 20.00

Location: Lokaal 01, Breda
Kloosterlaan 138

NL- 4811EE Breda

T: [phone]

E: [e-mail]

Thursday –Sunday  13.00– 17.00