Output details
34 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
University of Westminster
'In These Great Times'
This multi-part project resulted in five videos, 50 drawings, a poster and a series of photographs and newspapers that are conceived as a modular installation, which has been exhibited in different spatial configurations as an ‘exploded’ film. 'In These Great Times' takes as its starting point the anecdotal history of the art-nouveau café Odeon in Zürich where configurations of artists, asylum seekers, radicals, war and isolationism produce chains of association and connection. The project was developed as part of an AHRC Fellowship for the Creative Arts. The project received a Swiss Art Award from the Swiss Ministry of Culture at Art Basel (2009).
Please see portfolio for further documentation of research dimensions.
Since the turn of the century, there has been a history ‘boom’. Much of the work produced under this umbrella either simulates memory or employs documentary material to evoke the past (Dean, Hiller and Cuomo amongst others). This project seeks an alternative by focussing on the contemporary site of a minor historical location. It asks how can we read the past in a way that does not involve a simple hierarchy with the present? How can visual art in general – and expanded moving image practice in particular – produce a different kind of knowledge from that obtainable through historical narratives or documentary visuals? 'In These Great Times' was a large-scale project that evolved over a two-year period. Methods included archival research, location filming, scripting new texts and working with contemporary cultural actors. It embraces a transdisciplinary and cross-medium approach: portrait drawings of those who used to frequent the café meet newspaper coverage of contemporary wars; a tactile video portrait exploring the surface of the art-nouveau architecture is extended by another video in which an actor performs a historical text. Through this approach, the project produces a novel model for art documentary practices, combining drawing, video and text to address history in representational and spatial terms without recourse to narrative. It was also the first project to explore the multi-faceted history of the Café Odeon and, by focussing on a minor site, to explore associations with larger issues such as the legacy of 20th-century intellectuals and the migratory effects of war.
