1. Screening: DISTANCIA
Design by Alejandro Torres Viera & Eduardo Palma
Screening: DISTANCIA
Se habla español in conversation with Ensayos
Organized by: Se habla español (SHE) Ensayos
The 8th Floor 17 W 17th St, New York, NY
Monday, November 25, 2019
The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation and The 8th Floor are delighted to present the program Screening: DISTANCIA. In a collaboration between the collectives Ensayos and Se habla español, this program entails the projection of DISTANCIA, an ethno fictional web series set in Tierra del Fuego, Chile and a subsequent conversation that will address questions related to ethical bio-cultural practices, political ecology, and the issues in representing the landscape. After the 35 min screening, Se habla español will moderate a talk with art historian Carla Macchiavello, curator Camila Marambio, and visual artist and filmmaker Carolina Saquel, members of Ensayos, to engage in a conversation about the relation of visual language and modes of resistance. Fiction, sequences, distance, and the opaque can be tools for decolonization. With this web series, written and directed by Camila Marambio and Carolina Saquel, Ensayos poses the following questions: “If objective observation, ethnographic interpretation and geographic analysis seem to have exhausted themselves, what other method is there? Or must the query be abandoned altogether? But how does one abandon a desire, and the question of how to learn an other’s language, its lan- guage?” When talking about Tierra del Fuego, “in a territory that is often imagined as untouched and remote, [DISTANCIA] unfolds a story of cosmopolitical entanglement between two Chilean human rights activists, an American tycoon, a Nation State, a conservation biologist, a road under construction, a family of penguins, and the relentless wind. Of environmental propor- tions, this complex tale reveals a colonial culture of appropriation and extermination and the extraordinary civilians who fight for justice and kinship at the ‘road’s end’.”
BIOS
Se habla español (SHE) is a curatorial collective established in 2017 by Noelia Lecue Francia, María Alejandra Sáenz García, Andrea Valencia Aranda, and Natalia Viera Salgado. As Spanish speakers and curators, the collective works on interdisciplinary artistic projects that seek to expand the limits of language, addressing ecology, migration, identity, human rights, and memory. SHE develops through collective effort and multiple perspectives, curatorial and artistic research that take the form of exhibitions, publications, talks, and workshops. SHE responds to contemporary issues, creating platforms that enable reflections and support artistic creation.
Ensayos is a Chilean collective research practice centered on extinction, human geography and coastal health. Initiated on the archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, Ensayos first focused solely on the ecopolitical issues impacting the Fuegian archipelago and its inhabitants past and present, human and nonhuman. Over the years Ensayos has defined itself as an interdisciplinary residency, a transdisciplinary research program, an ecofeminist collective, a public health service, and a curatorial exercise.
WEB SERIES CREDITS:
DISTANCIA, Tierra del Fuego 2018, Original Version in Spanish, subtitled in English, color, 6 episodes.
Tierra del Fuego 2018, Original Version in Spanish, subtitled in English, color, 6 episodes. Director: Camila Marambio, Carolina Saquel/ Original Idea: Camila Marambio/ Written by: Camila Marambio, Carolina Saquel/ General Production: Camila Marambio/ Executive Production: Camila Marambio, Carolina Saquel, Ivette Martínez, Julio Gastón Contreras/ Image & Editing: Carolina Saquel/ Photography Direc- tion: Matías Illanes/ Camera: Matías Illanes, Carolina Saquel/ Drone: Gastón Herrera/ Archival Trailer Images: Patricio Riquelme, Philippe Eustachon/ Trailer Editing: Vincent Tricon/ Sound & Design Editing: Ariel Bustamante/ Direct Sound: Ariel Bustamante, Sebastián Arce/ Original Music in Episode 5 & Teaser, “Minueto” & “Cumbita”: Sebastián Arce/ Original Music: Sebastián Arce/ Sound Mixing: Pablo Infante/ Color Correction & Subtitling: Darío Ordenes/ Color Correction Trailer: Yannig Willmann/ Transfer 16 MM: MemoryLab Melbourne/ English Translation: Manuela Baldovino/ French Translation: Mélanie Chanat/ Title Design: Pablo González/ Web & Poster Design: Rosario Ureta/ Media Strategy: Teresita Quezada/
Funded by: MADA Monash University, Australia; Scam, Paris; Ana María Yaconi; MEGA Foundation, Stockholm, y cada uno de los participantes de Ensayos quienes, curiosamente, comprometen su tiempo desafiando toda lógica capitalista/ With the Support of: Práctica Curatorial de Monash University, WCS Karukinka, Chile; Museo Maggiorino Borgatello, Punta Arenas; María Luisa Murillo y CAB; Andrés Fernández; Bárbara Saavedra; Tessa Dwyer; Tara McDowell; Tom Nicholson y toda la familia Nicholson McCaughey; María Elena Guerra; Bruno Latour; Betónsalon, Paris; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris/ Thanks to: Macarena Ovalle, Sala K, Óscar Aguilera, Philippe Eustachon, Christy Gast, Evgenia Giannuri, Emilie Hache, Gastón Herrera, Brent Klinkum, Carla Macchiavello, Patricia Messier, Alfredo Prieto, Leonardo Prieto, Patricio Riquelme, Nicolás Spencer, José Tonko, Barbara Villez, Emilie Villez, PAF (Performing Arts Forum), St. Erme, Francia.
BIOS:
Carla Macchiavello (Chile), art historian, Assistant Professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College, CUNY. Macchiavello has specialized in Chilean and Latin American contemporary art with an emphasis in video, performance, networks of solidarity and resistance, and artistic practices aimed at social change. She received her PhD and Masters degrees in Art History and Criticism from Stony Brook University, NYC. From 2010 until 2014 she was Assistant Professor at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá.
Camila Marambio (Chile), curator, Founder/Director of Ensayos. PhD in Curatorial Practice, Monash University, Melbourne. M.A. in Modern Art: Curatorial Studies, Columbia University, NYC. Master of Experiments in Art and Politics, Science Po, Paris. Her ways are fishy and flighty. She observes bodies in motion, is concerned with human health and most of all tells ancient stories.
Carolina Saquel (Chile), a visual artist and filmmaker and previously was a practicing lawyer based in Paris. Saquel uses the moving image to alter the perception of temporality of seemingly trivial matters. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and collective exhibitions, as well as film and video art festivals around the world: Fundació JoanMiró, Barcelona; Harbourfront Centre, Toronto; Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg; Grand Palais, Paris; Bloomberg Space, London.
The 8th Floor is an independent exhibition and event space established in 2010 by Shelley and Donald Rubin to promote artistic and cultural initiatives. Inspired by The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, the gallery is committed to broadening the access and availability of art to New York audiences. Seeking further cultural exchange, The 8th Floor explores the potential of art as an instrument for social change in the 21st century, through an annual program of innovative contemporary art exhibitions and an events program comprised of performances, salon-style discussions, and those organized by external partners.