Phoenix Rising Film Screenings: Anne Maree Barry and Stina Wirfelt

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31 January 2015

2pm, Saturday 31 January 2015

Anne Maree Barry, Missing Green, 2013

14m; Courtesy of the artist

Missing Green is a poetic journey through Cork Street, Dublin. Narrated via interviews with former Councillor John Gallagher, architect Gerry Cahill, author and journalist Frank McDonald and sociologist Aileen O’Gorman, the viewer discovers an area in Dublin that has gradually but dramatically transformed in the last 80 years. Utilsing Situationist methodologies, Barry recreates a personal dérive through the character Girl. Her journey provides a complimentary narrative by exploring the urban environment, paying attention to the smaller details, lost objects, signage, and an allotment, increasing the viewer’s awareness of the urban landscape of which the narrators speak. This hybrid film creates a dialogue that reflects on a historic area in Dublin, whilst situated in the present.

Read a Q+A with Anne Maree Barry at the Phoenix Rising blog.

Stina Wirfelt, Monuments, 2008, and Tame Time, 2010

7m and 9m; Courtesy of the artist

Comprising a series of photographs shot by the artist, Monuments documents a series of truncated, unfinished roads and abandoned highway ramps around Glasgow. In the fictional city of Metropolis, the deadpan voiceover describes these unused thoroughfares as remnants of ‘…a fallen paradise that remained standing – a constant reminder of what could have been’. Wirfelt casts the towering yet destitute landmarks as referents to an increasingly forgotten, or perhaps more succinctly, criticised modernist ideal, prevalent reminders of the New Towns that were never built and neighbourhoods that were not raised. The narration is cringingly sincere, however. Monuments is motivated by straightforward interplay between the dialogue and visual clues in the photographs. This approach enables a functional deceit; the viewer is encouraged to believe the loosely woven audio-diary and its historical inaccuracies about the area portrayed.

Tame Time looks at the area of Dalmarnock, which was later transformed to house several of the sporting events and the athletes' village during the Commonwealth Games in 2014. The fictional story is told from the perspective of a woman who regularly walks her dog in the area, an activity that makes her think about the past, the present and the future. Rather than exploring the history of the area, the video is about a person’s everyday relationship to a space and how it relates to her memory. Tame Time was commissioned by the Centre for Contemporary Art in Glasgow to commemorate the handover of the Commonwealth Games from Dehli to Glasgow in October 2010.

This is a free event but seating is limited so early arrival is recommended.