This event is part of CIDRAL's Spring 2017 programme 'Precarity'.
Larissa Sansour and Soren Lind will be presenting their latest (2016) film In the Future, they Ate from the Finest Porcelain. Sansour will also be speaking on her recent sculptural installation Archaeology in Absentia.
http://www.larissasansour.com/
In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain (2016)
Film, photo and installation
In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain resides in the cross-section between sci-fi, archaeology and politics. Combining live motion and CGI, the film explores the role of myth for history, fact and national identity.
A narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain - suggested to belong to an entirely fictional civilisation. Their aim is to influence history and support future claims to their vanishing lands. Once unearthed, this tableware will prove the existence of this counterfeit people. By implementing a myth of its own, their work becomes a historical intervention - de facto creating a nation.
The film takes the form of a fictional video essay. A voice-over based on an interview between a psychiatrist and the female leader of the narrative resistance group reveals the philosophy and ideas behind the group's actions. The leader's thoughts on myth and fiction as constitutive for fact, history and documentary translate into poetic and science fiction-based visuals.
As the film progresses, the narrative and visuals alternate between the theoretical and the personal. The resistance leader's deceased twin sister makes a crucial appearance as the story takes the viewer deeper and deeper into the resistance leader's subconscious.
In addition to the film, the project comes with a photo series and a porcelain installation.
Archaeology in Absentia (2016)
20cm bronze sculptures
Archaeology in Absentia is a sculptural installation of ten 20cm bronze munition replicas modelled on a small Cold War Russian nuclear bomb. Engraved on a disc inside each capsule are the coordinates, longitude and latitude, to a deposit of hand-painted porcelain plates with folkloric patterns buried in Palestine. With the porcelain itself absent from the installation, the bomb shells and the references they hold represent the archaeological artefacts in absentia.
The coordinates of each porcelain deposit are established during a real-life entombment performance taking place in Palestine. Ten deposits will be buried strategically across Palestine/Israel, in collaboration with local art institutions. Carrying the iconic keffiyeh pattern, these plates are deposited for future archaeologists to excavate. Once unearthed, they will interfere with current versions of history and in effect cause a historical intervention.
