Michaela Schweiger "Begleiter"
4. September – 24. Oktober 2009
4. September – 24. Oktober 2009
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» deutsche version
In her films and installations of the past years, Michaela Schweiger has increasingly addressed issues related to the conditions of architectural and urban space, on the one hand, and to the significance of media spaces such as television, cinema and the Internet, on the other. In this context, her interest is focused on planned cities because they reveal social ideas and processes in an especially clear way. In films and drawings, she examines the utopias of post-war modernism, their architectural manifestations in the East and the West, and the dissolution of these utopias due to social and political developments.
Her most recent film, which is to be understood as the prologue to the film “Trabanten” planned for 2010, is about images of women as well as the creation of images in general. In the planning-related considerations of postwar modernism, women and families play a special role.
» deutsche version
In her films and installations of the past years, Michaela Schweiger has increasingly addressed issues related to the conditions of architectural and urban space, on the one hand, and to the significance of media spaces such as television, cinema and the Internet, on the other. In this context, her interest is focused on planned cities because they reveal social ideas and processes in an especially clear way. In films and drawings, she examines the utopias of post-war modernism, their architectural manifestations in the East and the West, and the dissolution of these utopias due to social and political developments.
Her most recent film, which is to be understood as the prologue to the film “Trabanten” planned for 2010, is about images of women as well as the creation of images in general. In the planning-related considerations of postwar modernism, women and families play a special role.
The exhibition “Begleiter (Companions)” will feature parts of the film set and drawings made for various scenes. Like an orb revolving around a planet, the camera circles around a modernist setting. Accompanied by a narrating voice, it traverses various spaces and times. The conceptual starting point is the pioneering construction project “Unité d'Habitation” (Type Berlin), which was completed and occupied in 1958. Tracking shots through spaces and excerpts of fiction scenes, which were developed based on interviews with female inhabitants, tell of the images of women in different generations, of the women’s memories and assessments. The protagonists break out of the standardised flats and enter into insecure spaces. The figures, women of the postwar era and of the generation of their daughters, find themselves in similar situations, while attempting to take their own paths.
Episodes of everyday life turn into almost surreal scenes pointing to little escapes from reality, actual liberties and utopias. These exemplary figures in their model flats are accompanied by insights into the production of images.