Artist talk by Marta Hryniuk & WET screening

Thursday, March 21, 20:00 – 22:00, Herðubreið cinema

The program is organised by Marta Hryniuk, current artist in residence at Skaftfell, in collaboration with WET– a Rotterdam-based cooperative for video and film (Anna Łuczak, Erika Roux, Marta Hryniuk, Nick Thomas and Sophie Bates). 

20:00 – 20:45 Artist talk 

Marta Hryniuk (PL) will introduce her new video work ‘Camerawoman’ (in progress), which draws on her family’s 8mm film archive, shot by the artist’s great aunt Maria Jastrzębska in the 1950s and ’60s. The reels are records of daily life in socialist-era Poland, showing family celebrations, travels, as well as a document of intimate relationships. 

20:45 – 21:00 Break

21:00 – 22:00 Screening of artist films by WET

The screening will feature artist films by members of WET, a cooperative which was formed through both working affinities and friendships, in the belief that filmmaking is primarily a collective enterprise. Crucial to WET is the provision of mutual support, with the aim of re-thinking what it means to have a sustainable practice. The works echo the importance (and problematics) of community and self-organisation. The program’s running time is approximately 60 minutes.

Nick Thomas, ‘An Entrance is an Exit Too’, 15’20’’, 2018

Anna Łuczak & Angelika Falkeling, ‘Stories from the workplace’, 7’40’’, 2018

Sophie Bates, ‘Scabs’, 16’00, 2018

Erika Roux, ‘A Couple Things’, 10’30’’, 2017

Marta Hryniuk, ‘de Spiegel’, 5’30’’, 2018

About the artists:

WET is a Rotterdam-based production and distribution cooperative for film, video and artists’ moving image. WET works within a spectrum of contemporary moving image practices and comes together to pursue a mode of production based on collaboration and mutual support. WET assists in the production of works through the exchange of labour, equipment and expertise. WET is also a platform for distribution, curating and programming, with a focus on works which question existing film orthodoxies, and which propose alternative (social, historical, political and aesthetic) perspectives on the medium.

Marta Hryniuk (1991) is a Polish artist based in Rotterdam. She graduated from the University of Arts in Poznań (BFA), the Academy of Arts in Szczecin (MFA) and the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam (MFA). She has co-founded the nomadic artist-curator collective Silverado (2013-2017) and WET (2018- ). She has had solo exhibitions and participated in numerous group shows. Holder of the “Van Been Donner Stichting” (2018), “Young Poland” (2017) and Minister of Culture and National Heritage (2015) scholarships. Marta makes film and video works that explore female biographies and identities, especially those shaped by experiences of displacement, as well as activating relations between cinematic tools and gender. Her work is often entangled with the past. She is particularly interested in the resurfacing of histories in the present, reappearing in her own life and the lives of those around her. Her camera is a research tool and observational device, as well as an active agent in the situations it depicts. With every project, she builds relationships and collaborations with the subjects of the film. Her works rely on intuition, intimate encounters, and on empathy being embodied in the camerawork. As much as the camera is observational, it also cares; it is soft, it caresses. Pointing the camera is a poetic act at the same time as it is research.

Marta Hryniuk’s residency at Skaftfell is supported by CBK Rotterdam.


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