Artists’ Film International is an annual collaborative project that has featured film, video, and animation from around the world since 2008. Collectively selected and curated by a network of 15 global partner institutions, Artists’ Film International is dedicated to the work of artists who privilege the languages of the moving image. This year’s program runs for 300 days with exhibitions, screenings and public programs on four continents.
For this edition, GAMeC and other partners have commissioned or selected recent films by authors in their geographic area that respond to the theme of “solidarity.” Viewing solidarity as a collective form of resistance, union and interdependence, they address the ways in which this is sought and enacted on micro and macro scales, and cultivate radical imaginaries that have the potential to transform our broader collective experience.
The video work selected by GAMeC’s curatorial team is En Ausencia by Caterina Erica Shanta. Born in 1986 in Germany, Shanta is a visual artist and filmmaker. She works primarily on moving images making films based on private archives and collective film practices.
Designed and filmed during the artist’s research residency in Mexico City, En Ausencia, meaning “in absence,” constitutes a reflection on water, which, in some Latin American countries, becomes an element of deep social discrimination and conflicting forces for the exercise of power. Indeed, in Mexico, water is often contaminated and drinking water is a private commodity, access to which is therefore regulated by market laws like any other commodity. In this context, access to water is not guaranteed in an equitable and sustainable manner and becomes the preserve of those who can afford a constant supply of water. To emphasize the political character of water in Mexico, Shanta issued an open call inviting people to narrate their dreams where water appeared as the main and recurring element. The film is therefore built on the narrative voices of the people who joined the project recounting dreams of water, wonderful and terrifying omens, against the backdrop of the marshes of Xochimilco: the last memory of the immense Lake Texoco that disappeared after the 1960s.
After being displayed alongside the works of the artists selected by the other international institutions for this edition, Caterina Erica Shanta’s work will be on view for the duration of the exhibition, until January 19, 2025.
Convened by Forma, Artists’ Film International 2024 is co-curated and co-presented by fifteen arts organisations across the globe: argos centre for audiovisual arts, Belgium; Ballroom Marfa, USA; Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V., (CCAA in EXiLe), Germany; Crawford Art Gallery, Ireland; Cultural Center of Belgrade, Serbia; Forma, UK; Fundación Proa, Argentina; Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo (GAMeC), Italy; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), USA; MMAG Foundation, Jordan; Project 88, India; Sapieha Palace, branch of the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Lithuania; Tramway, Scotland; Tromsø Kunstforening, Norway; Video-Forum of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (n.b.k), Germany.