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Project 2: Feedback and progress

Based on the feedback received in the last formative review session I make progress in the development of project 2. First, I explored in more depth the concepts of Colonialism and Developing countries, because in one hand UK has a long history as a colonising nation and, on the other hand, Chile has a long story as a colonised country, although nowadays it is considered one of the most developed countries in Latin America. Related to these some questiones emerges:

What is a developed country?

Why Chile is considered developed if we are one of the countries with the widest social class inequality gap?

Regarding the concept of colonialism, I found this interesting quote:

“[the] nations are hybrid narrative constructions that result from the interaction of the colonizing and colonized cultures, and that these nationhoods exist in a liminal space between competing cultural traditions and historiographies”1.

Based on the above I decided to work with the sentence shown in the reference video (see last post): Chile where the impossible is possible.

(Collage made with screencaps from the video and famous images of Chile´s 2010 earthquake and 2019 protests).

The aim of the audiovisual piece is to confront the mysterious and mystical image of Chile that is share in the official video, with what I and other people experience in our daily life in the country through real footage registered by us. Also, our daily life has some “impossible” things as we are developing a unique process in the world, the writing of a new constitution in a 100% democratic process, a president who received a pokemon toy as a present from Japan government or Edinburgh supermarket prices with “developing” country wages.

In addition, I have been thinking about where could I present the video? What place could be better? Inspired by the work of Angelica Mesiti, I believe that this audiovisual piece could be in an international or national museum being part of an exhibition.

(Source: https://www.southlondongallery.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Quarry_B0A1010-2.Crop_.jpg)

The piece can be shown at intervals and before to each viewing people could be invited to write on a piece of paper what they know, think or imagine about Chile. Then, at the end of the video they would be invited to reflect on the previous ideas they had and what they saw and write down their conclusions on the same paper. The piece of papers could be placed on a wall next to the exhibition room and form a new piece of the art work.

(Sources: Image 1, https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1552664688-cf412ec27db2?ixlib=rb-1.2.1&ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxzZWFyY2h8MXx8c3RpY2t5JTIwbm90ZXN8ZW58MHx8MHx8&w=1000&q=80; Image 2: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1S8zYZuBZRRRO8NCd2snO3U5Q1o=/0x0:1620×1080/1200×800/filters:focal(681×411:939×669)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/52325135/30956396166_cfa532c5e1_o.0.jpeg)

References

1. Kay, Morgan. Gendered Postcolonial Discourse in the Mabinogi. Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium 24/25 (2004), 216–28. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40285191

Project 2: Developing the concept

After researched how other artists work with narratives and think about the ideas emerged after this, I decided to work with the following concept:

  • How Chile is represented from abroad and how Chile presents itself to abroad.
I decided to work with this concept because is more specific and I have much information and background related to it compared to others ideas that emerged previously.
The concept emerged because in my time in Edinburgh I have been talking with different people from a range of ages and nationalities and I have noticed that Chile is imagined, for example, as a very warm place with sun during all the year and most people seem surprised to realised that the climate in southern Chile is very similar to that of Scotland. Also, a few people knows about other characteristics as the food,  language or the important political process as the writing of a new constitution after one of the largest protests in Latin America in the last years.
In addition, the UK government site has a section called Foreign travel advice where they provide information of different countries, Chile among them:
In this website I noticed that there is many information that is quite exaggerated. One example of this is when they talked about terrorism:
Image source: UK Government website

With this in mind I am thinking about doing an audiovisual piece that looks like a promotional video about Chile and its characteristics using the text on this website as a script with some texts additions based on what people had told me about what they know about Chile. The short film will have an voice-over edited with images from Chile that sometimes will be in accordance with what is said and sometimes totally contrary to it. This aims not only to question but also to broaden the narratives about Chile on this side of the world.

With this in mind I am thinking about doing an audiovisual piece that looks like a promotional video about Chile, such as the one presented below:


Audiovisual Treatment

The script will be made based on texts extracted from the Foreign advice website, the promotional video shown above, what the people had told me about Chile and what I know about my country.

The short film will have an voice-over edited with images that sometimes will be in accordance with what is said and sometimes totally contrary to it. The video will considere te following footage:

– Images produced by myself in previous occasions in Chile (protests, journeys, assemblies, family)

– Footage from chilean television

– Footage from foreign television

All the mentioned above aims not only to question but also to broaden the narratives about Chile on this side of the world.

Project 2: Research for inspiration

These last two weeks have been dedicated to research the work of other artists and the ways in which they create or break narratives about different actual topics.

I found very interesting and outstanding works in the following artists:

Jesse Jones (Ireland)

She is a Dublin-based artist who uses multiple formats in her artwork mixing film, performance, installation, and collective structures to explore, question and challenge historical narratives in culture through current concepts and situation. Her work challenges the status quo and allows the audience to reflect on concepts as feminism, the law and its physical influence on the excluded bodies in society, historical events that has divided societies in countries as Ireland or Korea, among other topics.

A remarkable element in some or her works is the re-script or re-enact from previous films, situations, or dramatic works to give them a new look from today’s perspective. An example of this is The Other North (2013), a film where people re-enact therapy sessions held by an American psychologist in the 1970s. These sessions were made in Northern Ireland and were seeking to gathered people from different political and social backgrounds to resolve historical conflicts (Source: https://www.jessejonesartist.com). She developed this work after archive research of Northern Ireland and research visits to South Korea.

(Source: Jesse Jones website)

In this work, Jones give us the possibility to know and empathize with the experiences of people whose lives were severely impacted by politic, economic and social conflicts and connect two experiences, North Ireland and Korea, through the re-enact of Northern Ireland stories by South Korean people.


Alberta Whittle (Barbados / Scotland)

Artist, researcher, and curator who explores concepts as racism, colonialism, inclusion, diversity, and others related to them using multiple formats (film, collage, installation, sculpture, founded objects) in public and private spaces. Her work allows the viewers to question not only the society as their selves to battle xenophobia and racism challenging narratives behind mainstream images, phrases and other elements with her own background and narrative as a migrant person.

A notable example of her work is Business as Usual (2020), because she appropriates a phrase that came from the business area, which means to keep on going despite of the circumstances and used it to question how the institutions and society claims being inclusive and diverse but in reality, they are not, or they are in a lukewarm and politically convenient way (Source: https://www.albertawhittle.com/business-as-usual.html).

(Images: Alberta Witthle website)

Using collage technique, Whittle juxtaposes images of her own body, her culture, and stereotypes about these to challenge the narrative of power in which inclusion is talked about, yet it is only done from a comfortable point of view that does not upset people not directly affected by colonialism and racism.


With all the above in mind I made a new brainstorming to explore new possible topics for project 2:

Witches: what is said about them in the past? What is said about them now? Who works for those narratives? How have been broken these narratives and by who? What can I say about this topic? 

Objects from another continents and civilizations in the Museum Collections: Why all these objects are there? What is said about them? Whats the official story about them and what is Hidden? Are shown through an stereotypical view? How they got these objects? Were collected? Were stolen? What can I say about this topic?

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