Every year, in closed link with social organisations, ephemeral popular galleries are opened for the duration of the festival.
As early as 1920, the filmmaker Dziga Vertov theorize and put into practice the necessity to free the images from the spaces the market or cultural institutions dedicated to them, so that cinema does not remain the preserve of art lovers.
In 2018, Jean-Luc Godard revive this idea by refusing to have his film The book of image controlled by the laws of the mainstream cinema distribution companies. He demands his film to be only showed by persons really willing to welcome it. With the Ephemeral Popular Galleries, we are following on to them both.
In November 2018, the students questioned the significance of video & digital arts in spaces like social organisations, and their impact on public spaces and their inhabitants. The students met the organisations, the teams and their “service-users”, before and during the opening of the galleries.
They managed to realise 3 short films, each of them giving us a different insight on the presence of art works in “non-dedicated” spaces. They reveal the delicacy of such an action, generate discussion and debate.
Thanks to the students for their work! It was a difficult exercise because they didn’t have much time to film which made it even more difficult to film in a working office dedicated to the welcome of persons.
With a poem by Nazim Hikmet, The strangest creature on earth
Picture above: Art of the Rehearsal / Sarah Choo Jing (Singapore, 2017)