The exhibition Dreams & Memories brings together five video works from the holdings of the IMAI Foundation that establish diverse connections to photography.
In Pivot the Japanese artist Maki Satake (b. 1980) composes her own and archival photographs of Tomakomai into an original and highly dynamic sequence of images. As a reminiscence of the history of the city, the striking tours of the local paper factory are always in the center of the photographs.
The YouTube series Identities and Recipes by Ji Su Kang-Gatto (b. 1989) thematizes the artist’s Korean roots using personal memories and traditional recipes. The video How to cook Yukgaejang (Spicy Beef & Vegetable Stew) is about the loss of a close family member and the memories triggered by an old photograph.
The animated film Landscape Interior by Igor Kirin (b. 1975) unfolds a dreamlike, surreal landscape in which the individual scenes transition associatively into one another. The artist’s experimental soundtrack accompanies the unexpected transformation of the motifs, which seem to offer a view into his inner worlds.
The photographic foundation of the experimental short film Ici repose (Here Lies) is formed by images of cemeteries from the 1970s by Michel Delaborde. Robert Cahen (b. 1945) has impressively reworked them and set them to music to create a fascinating audiovisual daydream of memories of the deceased.
In Juice & Gin, Merle, Danilo, Isabel, Stefan Panhans (b. 1967) portrays three young people who dream of careers as photo models. In long camera shots from close up, we can precisely observe the studied sequence of different facial expressions that are triggered for brief moments by undisguised emotions and uncertainties.
