The cycle of documentary films
of the project
Trans:it
represents the synthesis of field research carried out along three itineraries.
The documentaries were made using an approach that was both critical and curatorial, considering video the ideal means to deal with
the fluidity of the issues analyzed.
Structured according to the geographic routes through the cities in which research was carried out, the documentaries include interviews
with artists, architects and critics and present the contexts in which the interventions were realized.
The Invisible Community
Italy
, 2003- 2005, DVCAM, 46' 23”
Original language Engl./Fr./It.
This first documentary covers the first phase of research for the project, looking at an itinerary that passed through
Paris
,
Rotterdam
,
Amsterdam
and
Rome
. The research investigates suburban and urban contexts in which “invisible communities” have grown up as
a result of the redefinition of social relationships and the development of cultures parallel to those of the country in question. Multiculturalism,
abandoned places, collective imagination and memory, visual and social transformation, the image of the city and the sense of public space
in the European context, are all themes examined.
Ruins for the Future
Italy
, 2004, DVCAM, 46'
Original language: English
The second documentary film was shot in
Berlin
,
Bucharest
, Sophia and
Belgrade
where, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, artists, architects
and art critics contributed to redesigning the urban landscape. Through new geographies and visual transformations, memory and identity
are questioned when the city's form changes and the city itself seems to become more vulnerable. Ruins speak of the existence of a lost time
which artistic practice endeavours to rediscover: artists seek to construct a common plane on which to merge individual experience with
collective experience, personal responsibility with civil responsibility.
Fluid Cities
Italy
, 2004, DVCAM, 32' 47”
Original language E ngl./It.
During the third phase, the projects for public space developed by artists active in
Athens
,
Istanbul
and
Cyprus
show a particular interest in
traditions and local culture, manifested in light of globalising pressures arriving from the world at large. These cities have been transformed
into multicultural laboratories. Migratory flows, collective memories and spaces undergoing rapid change have given shape to the concept of
fluidity, a characteristic common to various territories and demonstrative of the continual, rapid and increasing process of transformation to
which the urban context is subject.
For further information on the project
TRANS:IT Moving Culture through Europe
visit: http://www.transiteurope.org/about.htm