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: +31 (0)76 5141928
 
 E: breda@lokaal01.org
 
 Thursday –Sunday  13.00– 17.00