Eleonore de Montesquiou
dal 22/4/2009 al 19/6/2009
Segnalato da
22/4/2009
Eleonore de Montesquiou
Uqbar - projectspace, Berlin
Na Grane. The frist in a series of exhibitions on the symmetries and asymmetries between contemporary migration and tourism, within the frame of the interdisciplinary project Transient Spaces - The Tourist Syndrome. The artist collects images and interviews in Narva and Ivangorod, cities located on both sides of the Estonian-Russian border. The show, consisting of films, photos and drawings, continues her investigations in current transformation processes in a post-scoialist Estonia.
Eléonore de Montesquiou’s (* in Paris, France, lives and works in Berlin) exhibition Na Grane is the frist in a series of exhibitions on the symmetries and asymmetries between contemporary migration and tourism, taking place at uqbar project space 2009-2010 within the frame of the interdisciplinary project Transient Spaces - The Tourist Syndrome.
Since February 2007 Eléonore de Montesquiou collects images and interviews in Narva and Ivangorod, cities located on both sides of the Estonian-Russian border. Na Grane draws a multilayered portrait of the living and working condition in the border region at the very edge of Europe, and of the inhabitants, being in between times and spaces. The exhibition, consisting of films, posters, photos and drawings, continues the artist’s investigations in current transformation processes in a post-scoialist Estonia.
The film Kalamees (sound: Tatjana Kozlova) takes a central place in the exhibition: during 30 minutes we follow Sasha, going out with other fisherman on the frozen lakes and rivers, making holes in the ice, and staying all day long in the cold, waiting for the fish. While fishing, Sasha talks about his life. He grew up in Ivangorod, in an apartment in the highest building of the city, overlooking the river, the bridge, in a word the border. Today Sasha is in his late twenties, he lives in Ivangorod, works in the Kreenholm factory in Narva, goes out at night in St. Petersburg, criss-crossing the Russian-Estonian border daily, not speaking a word of Estonian. The individual portrait raises questions of what it means to live right on a border, in particular, the border between Russia and Estonia, the external border of the European Union, the Schengen area, a border which did not exist when Sasha was born, now defining nearly all area’s of his life.
The film There Were Eight presents additional views of the situation. Dasha, Elnara, Sergei and Danis, who were eight years old during Perestroika, talk about their memories of the end of the Soviet Union, and how they perceive the changes. Have the changes broadened their teenage world at the time? What are the limits today?
On May 22, 2009, 12 p.m., Eléonore de Montesquiou presents the videos Most (2009, 8’), Kalamees (2009, 30’), and Kreenholm (2009, 30’, first release) from the Na Grane complex within the frame of the series Videoart at Midnight at Kino Babylon, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, 10178 Berlin.
www.videoart-at-midnight.com
The exhibition is funded with support from the European Commission and the Insitut Français.
A project by Dorothee Bienert, Dortje Drechsel, Marina Sorbello, Antje Weitzel
Opening Thursday, 23.04.2009, 19:00
uqbar
Schwedenstr. 16 | D -13357 Berlin
U8/U9/M13 Osloer Straße
Stadtplan
Thursday – Friday, Sunday Wedding 14:00 – 18:30 and by appointment