Video Art Miden @ Balkan Can Kino Film Symposium

[update 4 October 2020: all screenings scheduled to take place during the Balkan Can Kino symposium in October will be postponed due to the Covid-19 measures in Athens]

Video Art Miden collaborates once more with Balkan Can Kino Film Symposium & Festival, which will take place in Athens from 9 to 18 of October 2020, presenting the video art program Past Present Continuous. The selection was curated by Olga & Gioula Papadopoulou especially for this year’s edition of the symposium, which focuses on the Balkan area.

More analytically:

Past present continuous // Curated by Olga & Gioula Papadopoulou

The Balkans. A world that has suffered and endured consecutive wars and crises, a world constantly struggling to express its personality in adversity. How is the current landscape of the Balkans characterized by the specific (economic-social-political) conditions that occurred in the previous years? And how much do memories still influence, mark and even “scar” the way we think about the present?

The selection investigates the connections between the past and the present though works that make references to 7 Balkan countries:  Slovenia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Romania, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria.

Ana Čigon and her work “Phoney Sights” cauterize and comment on a general crisis, starting with her home country (Slovenia) and finally extending in a much wider field: European, global, universal, humanitarian. (Reference: Slovenia)

Sophie Atkins with the installation “This Is Not Our Horse”, makes a political comment on the way History is manipulated. (Reference: North Macedonia)

The work “Days of War”, by Alex Faoro and Helena Deda, is a direct reference to war, through autobiographical data and personal memories of Helena Deda herself. (Reference: Kosovo)

Alexandra Bouge’s “The trial” refers to the end of Ceausescu’s dictatorship. (Reference: Romania)

The work “I Have a Song to Sing You”, by the Wild Pear Arts organisation, is a poetic metaphor for connecting the present with the past, through the story of a woman that talks to the dead. (Reference: Serbia)

Melina Peña, with her work “Ha Llegao la Hora” (The Time has Come), asks questions about society, the present and the future, through the figure of a futuristic shaman in the ruins of Sarajevo. (Reference: Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Silvia De Gennaro proposes a counter-revolution with color. In “Travel Notebooks: Kardzhali Bulgaria”, a colorful puzzle of ethnographic elements brings to life the gray walls of reality. (Reference: Bulgaria)

Lea Jazbec’s work “Self-portrait – Behind the reflection 01” moves to a more existential level, exploring concepts of identity and the existing space, through images of construction and deconstruction of a mirrored portrait. (Reference: Slovenia)

 

 Ana Čigon, Phoney Sights, Slovenia 2019, 21.49

Sophie Atkins, This Is Not Our Horse, North Macedonia 2019, 2.37

Alex Faoro & Helena Deda, Ditët e Luftës (Days of War), USA 2019, 3.18

Alexandra Bouge, The Trial, France 2019, 6.33

Wild Pear Arts, I Have a Song to Sing You (Imam pesmu da vam pevam), Serbia/UK, 2018, 5.40

Melina Peña, Ha Llegao la Hora (The Time has Come), Bosnia & Herzegovina 2018, 7.36

Silvia De Gennaro, Travel Notebooks: Kardzhali Bulgaria, Italy 2016, 2.12

Lea Jazbec, Self – portrait – Behind the reflection 01, Slovenia 2016, 8.13

 

Synopses of the works and artists’ bios may be found here

More info and updates can be found at the official website of Balkan Can Kino: balkan-can-kino.com