VISIO 12th EDITION
European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images
Lo schermo dell’arte presents the twelfth edition of the VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images, a research, residency and production programme dedicated to artists who use moving images in their artistic practice.
The project, curated by Leonardo Bigazzi, will be held in Florence in conjunction with the 16th Lo schermo dell’arte – Cinema and Contemporary Art Festival (November 15 – 19, 2023). The 8 participants will be young European-based artists who work with moving images; they will be selected through an open call organised in collaboration with some of Europe’s leading art academies and artist residencies.
The deadline to apply is Friday, July 21st, 2023.
VISIO includes the VISIO Production Fund, a €30,000 production fund conceived in partnership with Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Prato), Fondazione In Between Art Film (Rome), and FRAC Bretagne (Rennes).
Eight artists will be selected and invited to Florence and will have the opportunity to develop their own original project in dialogue with international curators and producers. Sharing and exchange between participants and professionals are facilitated by an intensive programme of mentoring sessions, round tables and individual meetings. Funds will eventually be awarded to three artists who will work with Leonardo Bigazzi, and Lo schermo dell’arte team, to produce the works and premiere them at the Festival in 2024. An artist’s edition of each of the works produced will become part of the permanent collection of the project’s partner institutions, which are committed to promote and exhibit them in the following years.
The artists awarded in the inaugural edition of the VISIO Production Fund in 2022 are: Simon Liu, Gerard Ortín Castellví, Maryam Tafakory and Yuyan Wang.
Structure
VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images has a four-part structure:
1. Mentoring Sessions
Critical sessions and one-to-one meetings will be organised with the aim of developing the projects presented by the participating artists. The invited curators will have the opportunity to study the proposals in depth before the start of the programme and then discuss the various aspects of the productions with the artists. The mentors for this edition are: Mathilde Henrot, producer and curator Locarno and Sarajevo Film Festival; Valentine Umansky, curator Tate Modern (London).
In these sessions the artists will also meet representatives of the project partner institutions with which the winning films will be co-produced: Etienne Bernard, director FRAC Bretagne (Rennes); Stefano Collicelli Cagol, director Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Prato); Alessandro Rabottini, artistic director Fondazione In Between Art Film (Rome).
2. Conversation Room
In this space participants will be able to meet artists, curators, critics, producers and directors of international institutions during round tables and individual 40-minute meetings. Whether used as an opportunity to present portfolios or simply have a conversation, these are meant to be moments of dialogue that will foster the participants’ professional growth and extend their network of international contacts. Confirmed guests include: Guido van der Werve among others.
3. Festival
the participating artists are invited to attend the screenings, meetings and lectures included in the programme of the 16th edition of Lo schermo dell’arte – Cinema and Contemporary Art Festival. This year’s edition will feature works and live events by: Diego Marcon, Rabih Mroué, Amie Siegel, Guido van der Werve among others. The programme includes also the world premieres of the works produced through the VISIO production fund 2022 by the artists Simon Liu, Gerard Ortín Castellví, Maryam Tafakory and Yuyan Wang.
4. Piattaforma Online in collaborazione con MYmovies
A work by each of the VISIO participants will be presented online, from 15 to 26 November 2023, on the Festival’s online platform.
Maeve Brennan
Brennan’s practice explores the historical and political resonance of material and place. Working across moving image, installation, sculpture and printed matter, her works excavate layered histories, revealing the unseen or hidden structures that determine our lived environment.
She graduated from Goldsmiths in 2012 and was a fellow at Ashkal Alwan – The Lebanese Association for Plastic Arts (Beirut) in 2013-14. She is associate lecturer at Royal College of Art and Goldsmiths (London). Currently, she is in residence at Somerset House Studios (London).
Brennan’s solo and group exhibitions include: E-WERK (Freiburg); Stanley Picker Gallery (London); Chisenhale Gallery (London); The Whitworth, University of Manchester; Spike Island (Bristol); Mother’s Tankstation (Dublin); Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art (Turku, Finland); Kunsthaus Bregenz (Austria); Neue Galerie Innsbruck; Pera Museum Istanbul; Mediterranea 19 Biennial (San Marino). Her films have been screened at International Film Festival Rotterdam, CPH:DOX (Copenhagen), Sheffield DocFest, and FILMADRID among other festivals.
Ph. credits Amy Gwatkin
Federica Di Pietrantonio
Di Pietrantonio’s practice focuses on relations and processes born through simulated realities, social platforms and videogames. Her work fluctuates between the perceived reality and the fictional quality of the virtual devices.
After a research-thesis carried out at KASK – Royal Academy of Fine Arts (Ghent), she graduated in painting from RUFA- Rome University of Fine Arts in 2019. She was selected for Mediterranea 18 Young Artists Biennale and then invited by NAM – Not a Museum for the Superblast residency at Manifattura Tabacchi (Florence). Recently this year, she participated in the residency at SODA – School of Digital Arts (Manchester) in collaboration with Quadriennale Roma.
Her work has been exhibited in institutions, private spaces and festivals, including Las Palmas (Lisbon); Una Vetrina (Rome); Temple University Gallery (Rome); The Gallery Apart (Rome); Fondazione smART – polo per l’arte contemporanea (Rome); Spazio In Situ (Rome); TILT (Renens, Switzerland); GAM – Modern Art Gallery (Rome); Virginia Bianchi Gallery (Milan); Adiacenze (Bologna); ADI Design Museum (Milan); Oberhausen Short Film Festival.
Ph. credits Eleonora Cerri Pecorella
Andro Eradze
Working primarily in his home country, Eradze experiments with narratives introduced in the outskirts of human habitation. Building upon the legacy of alternative approaches to reality – surrealism and magical realism – his practice blurs the distinction between the imaginary and the actual.
After finishing his studies at the Shota Rustaveli Film Academy (Tbilisi, Georgia), he received his MFA from CCA-T Center of Contemporary Art Tbilisi.
His work has been shown internationally, including: The 59th Venice Biennale The Milk of Dreams; New Museum Screen Series, New Museum (New York); Poetry Festival Long Song For Summer II, Camden Art Centre (London); We Are They: Glitch Ecology and the Thickness of Now, Honor Fraser Gallery (Los Angeles); Long Live the Night, SpazioA, (Pistoia, Italy); Everything Happened so Much, Oberhausen Short Film Festival.
Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
In his artistic practice, Kusno weaves narratives that transcend the boundaries between fiction and history, imagination and memory. His inquisitive approach probes the coloniality of power and explores the veiled elements that remain unseen.
After a MA in Cultural Studies, he is embarking on a PhD at the University of Amsterdam.
His work has been exhibited in international Institutions such as: Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam); Mumbai City Museum; Brussels Center for Fine Art; Inside-Out Art Museum (Beijing); ILHAM Gallery (Kuala Lumpur); Centre d’Art Contemporain (Genève); Art Hub Copenhagen. In 2021, Kusno received the Video Production Award from the Han Nefkens Foundation on the occasion of Loop Barcelona. His work is part of the permanent collections of MMCA – National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Seoul) and MoCA – Museum of Contemporary Art (Taipei).
Ph. credits Andreas Erwin
Valentin Noujaïm
Noujaïm’s practice delves into the dynamic interplay of real and imagined lives, crafting intricate narratives that transport viewers to fantastical realms inhabited by enigmatic characters. Focusing on improvised lives, compressed lives, and extinct lives, his works serve as mirrors, reflecting the complexities of power and dominance within French society.
Noujaïm was a resident at Artagon (Marseille), Villa Medici (Rome) and Lafayette Anticipations (Paris).
Supported by funding organizations such as Doha Film Institute, AFAC – Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, CNAP – Centre National des Arts Plastiques, and CNC – Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, his works have been screened internationally, including: Centre Pompidou (Paris); CPH:DOX (Copenhagen); DocLisboa; Dokufest (Prizren, Kosovo); CNAC Magasin (Grenoble); BlackStar Film Festival (Philadelphia, USA); Festival International du cinéma de Nyon.
Ph. credits Alexandre Ean
Claudia Pagès Rabal
The artistic research of Pagès Rabal deals with circulation and maintenance, and their role in sustaining the status quo. The continuity of certain systems and institutions is kept by what she calls “immobility of stable circulations” and “architectures of containment”, that uphold power through specific flows of goods, capital and value within a suspended and capturing present.
She has performed and exhibited, among others, at: CA2M (Madrid); Fundació Joan Miró (Barcelona); Tabakalera (Donostia, Spain); Vleeshal (Middelburg, The Netherlands); The Ryder (Madrid); MACBA (Barcelona); Kunstverein Braunschweig (Germany); La Casa Encendida (Madrid); CAPC (Bordeaux); HAU2 (Berlin); and Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE).
Pagès Rabal has been awarded the Mondriaan Werkbijdrage Jong Talent in 2016, the Ojo Critico Prize in 2022. She was in residence at Gasworks (London) in 2017, at Triangle France (Marseille) in 2020 and at Rijksakademie (Amsterdam) in 2020-2022. She is currently publishing her second book.
Marina Xenofontos
Xenofontos views ideological narratives and political symbols through an intimate gaze, where the malfunctions in their workings become discernible, affirming them as breeding grounds for both critique and invention. Her practice captures methods for recovering the fantastical, imaginary aspects of culture obscured through historical recording.
She received her MFA from Bard College in 2018 and was a resident at Rijksakademie in 2019. More recently, Xenofontos was in residency at Lafayette Anticipations.
Her work has been shown internationally, including: Venice Art Biennale – Cyprus Pavilion; gb agency (Paris); Goethe Institute (Cyprus); Mediterranea 19 Young Artists Biennale (San Marino); Hot Wheels Athens; ERMES ERMES (Rome); AKWA IBOM (Athens); Phenomenon 4 (Anafi, Greece); DESTE Foundation (Athens); The Island Club (Limassol); NiMAC (Nicosia). Currently, Xenofontos is having her first institutional solo presentations at SculptureCenter (New York) and at Camden Arts Center (London).
Ph. credits Shen Xin
Chris Zhongtian Yuan
Through sound and storytelling, Yuan’s practice investigates the ways in which spaces of absence and exile are politicized. By recomposing vernacular sonic and spatial materials, he explores narratives and politics that simultaneously build and dismantle our everyday spaces.
After receiving a Diploma from the Architectural Association (London) and a BA in Architecture from the University of Minnesota, he is currently a PhD candidate at Kingston School of Art (London).
Recent exhibitions and screenings include: International Film Festival Rotterdam; Whitechapel Gallery (London); Somerset House (London); Today Art Museum (Beijing); Venice Architecture Biennale – Greek Pavilion; Surplus Space (Wuhan); Power Station of Art (Shanghai); Videoex (Zurich); Reading International; Macalline Art Center (Beijing); V.O Curations (London); 1815, K11 (Wuhan); OCAT Institute (Beijing).
Ph. credits Liu Bo
On Più Compagnia in collaboration with MYmovies November 15 – 26, 2023
by Maeve Brennan, 2022, 20′
The artist documents an investigation into a series of looted vases, discovered at Geneva Freeport in 2014. Made in the 4th century BC by Apulian artisans, these vases remained buried in tombs for 2500 years before they were clandestinely brought to light. The objects’ journeys through the hands of looters, smugglers, restorers and dealers are counterpointed by the hand-painted stories that adorn them.
Ph credits: Maeve Brennan An Excavation (2022) film still. Commissioned by Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University.
by Federica Di Pietrantonio, 2023, 14′
The video is entirely shot within Farming Simulator 22, incorporating personally programmed or community-provided mods. The script is verbatim excerpts from online testimonies, with no alterations. The video’s audio features ambient in-game sounds and a narrating voice generated using AI voice cloning technology, emulating the artist’s voice.
Ph. credits: Federica Di Pietrantonio, 2023, FARMING, still from video. Digital/machinima video, sound, color, 1920 x 1080, 00:14:00. Courtesy the artist
by Claudia Pagès, 2021, 14′
The narrative is set around three sites related to the past and present of Barcelona’s commercial port: the ship-shaped business hub of the World Trade Center, the 19th-century customs building, and the harbour breakwater.
Global maritime routes, legal jargon, and the relentless flow of commerce and people compose a seamless 360-degree loop, in which the footage blends the rhythmic gestures of three performers and layers of handwritten texts into a series of music-video sequences.
Ph credits: Claudia Pagès. Gerundi Circular, 2021. MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona. Photo by Roberto Ruiz
by Valentin Noujaïm, 2023, 16′
In 1979, the Pacific Club was opened in the basement of La Défense – the business district of Paris. It was the first nightclub for Arabs from the suburbs; a parallel world of dance, sweat, young loves, and one-night utopias. Azedine, 17 years old at the time, tells us the forgotten story of this club and of this generation who dreamed of integrating into France but who soon came face to face with racism, the AIDS epidemic, and heroin.
Ph credits: Pacific Club, Valentin Noujaïm, 2023
by Andro Eradze, 2022, 8’12’’
In the Georgian poem The Snake Eater (1901) by Vazha-Pshavela, the protagonist has a supernatural talent for understanding the language of nature. Taxidermized animals appear in a forest, disturbed by an uproar of New Year’s Eve fireworks. Critical of the human carnival that is disruptive, toxic, and fatal for wildlife, Eradze’s film repositions fireworks as an entry point into the dark and mythological side of the forest, a world of plants, animals, and phantoms.
Ph. credits: Andro Eradze, Film still, Raised in the Dust, 2022, 4K, 08:12 min
by Timotheus Anggawan Kusno, 2022, 22’
The artist’s re-enactment of mass mobilization during the succession to the Indonesian regime is accompanied by a narrator’s recitation of an anachronistic poem. The production of this work of fiction reveals the overlapping and obscuring of memories, resulting in a cacophony of voices and distortion of memory.
Produced by Han Nefkens Foundations-Loop Barcelona.
Ph. credits: Terra incognita (Directed by Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, Produced by the Han Nefkens Foundations-Loop Barcelona, 2022)
by Marina Xenofontos, 2020, 3’52’’
Made with an open source digital animation program – follows an ideologically befuddled teenager failing to complete her tasks, stumbling through her childhood bedroom into a dreamlike vision, which drops her onto a rocky seaside via a space of kaleidoscopic darkness. The excerpts read out during the video come from an untitled poem by Cypriot poet Andriana Ierodiakonou; lyrics from two Greek folk songs as well as notes from the artist’s diary.
by Chris Zhongtian Yuan, 2020, 12’01’’
The Chinese city of Wuhan is evoked through a voice-over that recalls characters and events: from the story of a missing former member of the punk group Si Dou Le to the Autonomous Youth Center, from the anarchic, illegal performance venues to the epic flood of 1998. Between drone footage and computer-generated imagery, the mythologized industrial city appears to glow in a post-apocalyptic smog.
Ph. credits: Credits: Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella. Courtesy of the artist
VISIO. European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images – XII edizione
promoted and produced by Lo schermo dell’arte
curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
in collaboration with:
- Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Prato)
- Fondazione In Between Art Film (Rome)
- FRAC Bretagne (Rennes)
Photo Credits: Randa Maroufi, Bab Sebta, 2019. Courtesy the Artist and Barney Production
- Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera (Milan)
- Art House (Shkodër)
- AV-arkki – The Centre for Finnish Media Art (Helsinki)
- Careof (Milan)
- Cité internationale des arts (Paris)
- De Ateliers (Amsterdam)
- Gasworks (London)
- Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Berlin)
- La Casa Encendida (Madrid)
- Le Fresnoy-Studio national des arts contemporains (Tourcoing)
- Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (Amsterdam)
- Städelschule (Frankfurt)
- Villa Romana (Florence)
- WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre (Brussels)
LO SCHERMO DELL’ARTE 2023 directed by Silvia Lucchesi
is realised with the contribution of:
MIC – Direzione generale Cinema e audioviso
Regione Toscana – Giovani Sì – Toscanaincontemporanea2023
Comune di Firenze
Città metropolitana di Firenze
Main supporter Fondazione CR Firenze
With the support of Fondazione Sistema Toscana, Cinema La Compagnia, 50 Giorni di Cinema a Firenze, Embassy and Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the Italian Republic and Lithuanian Film Centre, Institut français Firenze
In collaboration with: Fondazione In Between Art Film, Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, FRAC Bretagne, Seven Gravity Collection, Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze, Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Villa Romana, MYmovies.
Main Sponsor: Gucci
Sponsor: B&C Speakers, Findomestic, Unicoop Firenze
Media partnership: Zero
Technical sponsor: Hotel Loggiato dei Serviti
The Magic Mountain by Micol Roubini is a project supported by the Italian Council (11 th edition, 2022), the program aimed at supporting Italian contemporary art in the world promoted by the Directorate General for Contemporary Creativity within the Italian Ministry of Culture.
The Festival is part of the programme “50 Giorni di Cinema a Firenze”.
50 Giorni is part of the Progetto Triennale Cinema, supported by the Ministero del Turismo and the local institutions and realised thanks to the Protocollo d’Intesa between Comune di Firenze, Regione Toscana, Fondazione Sistema Toscana, Fondazione CR Firenze, and Camera di Commercio di Firenze.