
Projections of the Surreal
Stills
About
Projections of the Surreal is a short film about the encounter of place, and light and color interventions, of artist Anne Katrine Senstad at the utopian surrealist sculpture garden “The Surreal Gardens”, that was created by British eccentric and visionary Edward James in Las Posas, Xilitla, in Mexico in the 1950's. The concrete structures in Edward James' jungle version of an Alice in Wonderland paradise, are the tapestry for Senstad's color projections of her video works Color Synesthesia I and II ( 2010-11). By merging Senstad’s art with the deteriorating architectural concrete surreal sculptures located in the jungle, the 2 art forms create a new language of site specificity and utopianism. Senstad also projects onto jungle and Mexico city-scapes, where projections enhance the colonial history of Mexico, amplified and embodied by the appearance of Spanish actor Paco Gallego Amigo, personifying the post-colonial state of orphaned nationhood. Inspired by Mexican Nobel laureate author Octavio Paz’ literary accounts of the Mexican soul where the fusion of indigenous and Spanish blood and culture suggest conflicting identity. The film was guided by Senstad’s collaboration with Mexico city based Mexican curator Sandra Cerisola, where the artists sought to unfold the history of Mexico, its intricate political and rich culture, pre colonial mysticism and the interwoven traces of pain by the hand of the oppressor, understood as embedded in Mexico’s pre-colonial and post-colonial cultures. Through the landscape of The Surreal Gardens the film enters these realms through a poetic, sublime and theatrical language. The beautiful, haunting and hypnotic film score by JG Thirlwell carries through the 3 chapters, “Bifurcations of Utopia”, “Orphan of Solitude”, and “The Surreal Garden”.
The film is supported by Arts Council Norway - Kunst og Ny Teknologi.
In Collaboration with: Edward James Foundation - The Surreal Gardens Las Posas and Fundación Pedro y Elena Hernández, A.C. Sandra Cerisola Pedro Cerisola Mathew Holmes
Films
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Other films by this artist in our catalogue
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The Sugarcane Labyrinth
Anne Senstaddigital, color, sound, 11.22 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreExperimentalInstallation
Color Synesthesia VI
Anne SenstadDigital, color, sound, 42.53 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreDocumentaryExperimentalInstallation
Time Beyond Place
Anne SenstadDigital, color and b/w, sound, 14.37 minRental format: Digital file - Read More
UTOPIE/UTOPIA (How We Live Together)
Anne Senstaddigital, color, stereo, 10.26 minRental format: Digital file - Read More
MÔNOSIS/MONOSIS (How We Live Together)
Anne Senstaddigital, color, sound, 11.22 min - Read More
MARGINALITÉS/MARGINALITIES (How We Live Together)
Anne SenstaddigitalRental format: Digital file - Read More
XÉNITEIA/XENITEIA (How We Live Together)
Anne SenstadDigital , color and b/w, sound, 17 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreExperimentalInstallation
Cubiculum Blue
Anne SenstadDigital, color, sound, 37.09 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreExperimentalInstallation
The Sensory Chamber VII / Cubiculum Red
Anne SenstadDigital, color, sound, 37.09 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreExperimentalInstallation
Chiasm of Lament I
Anne SenstadDigital, black and white, sound, 6.11 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreExperimentalInstallation
Chiasm of Lament II
Anne SenstadDigital, black and white, sound, 8 minRental format: Digital file - Read MoreExperimentalInstallation
Chiasm of Lament III
Anne SenstadDigital, black and white, sound, 10 minRental format: Digital file