The New Gotham Ballroom: One night only! June 8th
Join us for our annual spring gala, The New Gotham Ballroom, a pop-up 1930s era night-club at the Stan Mansion with dinner by Chef Jared Wentworth and Longman & Eagle. Tickets on sale now!
the archives
Bia Gayotto
May 1-June 3, 2011
Bia Gayotto is a Brazilian-American LA-based artist who completed an artistic residency at Threewalls in May 2011.
Somewhere in Between: Chicago, 2011
Two-channel video installation with sound
TRT: 18 minutes
Participants: Deidre Colgan, Rafael Enriquez, Anna Jones, Andrew Gregory Krzak, Faheem Majeed, Beate Minkovski, Jesse Mumm, Mark Nelson, Marivi Ortiz, Lorenza Perelli, Barbara Rudolf, Gerardo Serna and Karen Villamin.
"Somewhere In Between: Chicago" is a two-channel video installation that investigates what it feels like to be a bicultural person living in Chicago today. Through an open call, residents were invited to participate in an interview and video shoot that took place at a location of their choice. In their interviews, the subjects address their bicultural experiences from multiple points of view.
Instead of a traditional documentary style, the video has an open form. I operate the video camera much like a still camera, focusing on the nature of time and pure observation. The video’s compositions—which take the form of portraiture, still life, and landscape—range from details to long shots. Inspired by John Cage, chance plays an important role in my process, from the demographic of people who responded to my call to the different neighborhoods where the video was shot. The two-screen installation juxtaposes cityscapes, architecture, and domestic settings with portraits of the participants performing simple, everyday actions. The audio consists of ambient sound and voiceover, revealing a state of mind typical of those who live in an intercultural space and are in constant flux between two or more places and cultures. Edited independently, the audio is detached from the image of the speaker, breaking the linear relationship between voice and image.
"Somewhere in Between" reaches out to the bicultural community of people who, like me, moved to America in their teens or as adults and maintain a strong connection with another country. Through fragmentary shots and voiceover, the two-screen installation creates a sense of continuous flux and serendipitous encounters. The result is a multilayered portrait of Chicago mixing images of the city and its people with stories that reveal their sense of self and place in the world.
Links to Full Interviews:
Somewhere in Between: Chicago, 2011 (5' excerpt) from Bia Gayotto on Vimeo.