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EXHIBITIONS
AIKATERINI GEGISIAN, DIEGO GARCIA (2010)
Dates happen: 03/12/2010 ... 12/12/2010
Contemporary Art Center of ThessalonikiWarehouse B1, Thessaloniki port area, Project Room
December 3-12, 2010
The Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki (part of the State Museum of Contemporary Art) is presenting the video Diego Garcia by Aikaterini Gegisian, at the Project Room of Warehouse B1. It is an artist’s documentary, which looks at the deportation of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean (now the site of one of the biggest American military bases in the world) by the British Government to Mauritius.
The film juxtaposes text extracts from the Chagossian’s High Court testimonies, which collectively portray the islands as a paradise lost, with a camera that continuously wanders in the Mauritian landscape. These testimonies become the starting point for looking at Mauritius and the Indian Ocean as a complex set of relationships and act as catalysts in unravelling the hidden traces of history inscribed in spaces.
The film takes the form of a journey where landscape becomes the central character. Blending different narrative voices, such as the collective voice of the testimonies, the observational eye of the artist with ambient voices and sounds, the film comments on shifting geographies, on the myth of paradise and on the ways we inhabit a globalised world.
INFO/Credits:
Diego Garcia (2010)
16 mins – stereo sound – DigiBeta/DVD
(Shot in DVCAM in Mauritius in April 2009)
Courtesy: Kalfayan Galleries, Athens – Thessaloniki
Directed by: Aikaterini Gegisian
Director of Photography: Mark MacEwen
Editing: Andy Moss
Made with the support of Chagos Refugee Group, Olivier Bancoult, Lisette Talate, Rita David
Funded by: Arts Council England, Contemporary Art Center of Thessaloniki (State Museum of Contemporary Art, Greece), PARTage Residencies, Mauritius
Developed through Picture This’ Small Wonders Scheme
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