Organised by Dr Lucy Bradnock (The Courtauld) as part of the Modern and Contemporary Lecture and Seminar Series.
This performance lecture and screening will explore the artist’s process of developing 16mm film in bay leaf infusions and phytogram prints on film and photographic paper, as well as her research on the metamorphosis of Daphne.
PHYSICALSCREENING: Friday 15th March 2024, 15:00 Zannas.
ONLINESCREENING (geoblocked to Greece): 7th–17th March.
Daphne was a torso ending in leaves is a playful and witty ode to a star of classical mythology: Daphne. Here, the beautiful nymph, who was metamorphosed into a tree to escape a stalking God, is celebrated as a heroine and master of her destiny. But this cinematic gem, shot on 16mm, is above all a rich filmic experience, in which images and sound are meticulously intertwined to immerse the spectator in a universe of myth and legend. A spritely and tactile essayistic ode to a heroine of Greek myth, and a profound reflection on the legacy of an ancient arboreal transformation.
Μια παιχνιδιάρικη και διεισδυτική ωδή σε μια πρωταγωνίστρια της κλασικής μυθολογίας, τη Δάφνη. Εδώ, η πανέμορφη νύμφη, η οποία προκειμένου να ξεφύγει από έναν θεό που την καταδίωκε μεταμορφώθηκε σε δέντρο, αποθεώνεται σαν ηρωίδα και κύρια της μοίρας της. Αυτό το κινηματογραφικό διαμάντι, γυρισμένο σε 16mm, αποτελεί πρωτίστως μια πλούσια κινηματογραφική εμπειρία, κατά την οποία εικόνες και ήχος εναρμονίζονται για να βυθιστεί ο θεατής στο καθηλωτικό σύμπαν της μυθολογίας και των θρύλων. Μια απτή δοκιμιακή ωδή, που σφύζει από ζωή, για μια ηρωίδα της ελληνικής μυθολογίας και ένας βαθυστόχαστος στοχασμός στην παρακαταθήκη της αρχαϊκής δενδρικής μεταμόρφωσης.
A jury from the Kring van Nederlandse Filmjournalisten (Circle of Dutch Film Journalists) selected their own highlight to receive the KNF award: Daphne was a torso ending in leaves (Italy, Greece) by Catriona Gallagher. The jury was Ronald Glasbergen, Sebastiaan Khouw and Ard Vijn.
“The members of the KNF Critics Jury saw all 21 Tiger Shorts and choosing a winner wasn’t easy this year. Among us three, we had no less than nine favourites to discuss. Debating the last three took some time as we all had a different personal choice. But rest assured, we are all satisfied with our winner.”
“Many films were experimental in nature this year, but the winning short managed to use its style to support the story it told. It was also technically accomplished, showing an almost tactile playfulness between analogue and digital formats. And it was an interesting concept, an artistic researching of its subject, moving from a person, to a myth, to art, to objects with everyday use. The techniques used, the images used, are an homage to art in general, and to film specifically.”
ARTDINERS announces its 3rd season with artist Catriona Gallagher. Running from 7th to 10th October 2023, it will present a contemporary reading of the subject of myth. ARTDINERS is curated by Marta Gaudino, Irene Machetti and Alessia Simonetti, in partnership with Sa.L.A.D and with the support of the British Council, British School at Rome and Artable.
Season III presents a solo-show and a performance in the fascinating venue of Villino Sartorio, a villa usually closed to the public and home to many important artists’ studios. The artist’s work starts from the study of pellitory, a plant deeply connected to mythology, to explore urgent issues from a socio-cultural point of view. Gallagher’s solo-show presents the film Perdikaki and a selection of the Pellitory Study, also called Collector’s Archive (2013-18): 150 drawings, notes, anecdotes, diagrams, texts, pressed specimens that question the notions of existence and coexistence in today’s world. Through botanical processes, field observation, historical-mythical research and symbolic references, Gallagher meticulously mapped the growth of the pellitory (in Greek, ‘perdikaki’) in the urban environment.
The opening performance will activate the artist’s work, in dialogue with a food-happening specially conceived by Irene Machetti: an edible garden populated by herbs and plants connected to mythology and sharing a common ambiguity. Like a pharmakon, they can either cure or be poisonous, just like the pellitory.
Roma, A Portrait. Festival of foreign Culture Academies and Institutes at Palazzo delle Espozioni, Rome. May 10 - July 30, 2023
Curated by Cecilia Canziani with Francesca Campana and Giulia Gaibisso
With the collaboration of Accademia Belgica, Accademia di Danimarca, Académie de France à Rome – Villa Médicis, Accademia Tedesca Roma - Villa Massimo, Accademia di Romania in Roma, Accademia d’Ungheria in Roma, American Academy in Rome, British School at Rome, Centro Ceco di Roma, Circolo Scandinavo, Forum Austiaco di Cultura, Instituto Cervantes di Roma, Istituto Polacco di Roma, Institutum Romanum Finlandiae, Istituto Svizzero, Real Academia de España en Roma
With artworks and intervention by Camille Aleña, Elvira Amor, Giacomo Balla, Sara Barker, Yasmina Benabderrahmane, Carla Boserman, Maeve Brennan, Andrea Büttner, Simon Callery, J. B. Camille Corot, Michel Couturier, Danica Dakic, Freya Dooley, Catriona Gallagher, Oona Grimes, José Guerrero, Ernest Hébert, Benedikt Hipp, Julia Huete, Sophie Jung, Winifred Knights, Tobias Koch, Jochen Lempert, Benoît Maire, Ana Mendieta, Bocar Niang, Ester Partegàs, Elise Peroi, David Schutter, Maya Schweizer, Something Fantastic, Jakob Strandgaard, Esther B. Van Deman, William Villalongo, Hannah Villiger, Konstantin von Kügelgen, Clemens von Wedemeyer, Laura White.
“Terrapolis is a festival that revolves around the link between art and the environment, investigating the ways in which contemporary art practice can intervene in a wide range of ecological issues. The festival supports the development and sharing of artistic projects that, through the use of different media, investigate the existing and inseparable relationship between the ecological and social spheres. Terrapolis, named after a fictional equation reported by Donna Haravay in Chthulucene, surviving on an infected planet (Nero Editions, 2019), combines a variety of contemporary languages to reflect on important issues of our time, such as the relationship with the environment, possible new types of relationships between individuals and the collective imagination of the future. Now in its third edition, Terrapolis – archaeologies of the future, reflects on utopia as a trace of the future to follow. Damian Borovsky states that ‘amidst the ruins of the present, we trace archaeologies of the future’: when the most plausible predictions describe the future dramatically, and when any attempt at a utopian solution must face the pressures of post-industrial globality, a total rethinking of the fundamental mechanisms of society must be reaffirmed. Terrrapolis – archaeologies of the future reconsiders the role utopian thinking can play in the age of planetary crisis, during two different days characterised by different modes of imagination.
The preview day on 7 July will take place at Tenuta Bene (Podere Canova) in the hills of Bologna, in collaboration with Circolo DEV. The works reflect on the topic of “ambitopia”: world imaginations that aim to go beyond the dichotomy of dystopian or utopian futures. Ambitopias are different, sustainable and post-capitalist futures, they draw from a variety of approaches and beliefs and do not attempt to describe a better future, but rather the different directions in which reality might tend. Film works by Catriona Gallagher, Pedro Neves Marques, Gerard Ortín Castellví will be screened outdoors. The evening will open with a live recording session by Radio Khame.”
