marine hugonnier: "an enquiry into the politics of vision"

 

Meadow Report (2021) Marine Hugonnier, 35mm film, colour, sound, 11 min (my photographs from Guggenheim Bilbao)

When visiting the Guggenheim Bilbao, I saw Marine Hugonnier's Meadow Report. This work examines Monet's Water Lilies from a new vantage point. The lens intimately explores the water and lily pad edges, on a large screen with the environmental sounds surrounding the viewing space, allowing the viewer to feel immersed. At a point, the lens is removed and the analogue film interacts in a new way with the surroundings, obscuring the traditional vision from a camera, creating one breaking away from the patriarchal, capitalistic realms of image production we are used to; creating a new gaze. 

See notes on the work at the artist's website here

The title Meadow Report is a reference The Limits to Growth (1972), a report by Meadows & Meadows, "the first simulation of the impact of exponential economic and population growth in a finite environment, and warned of the likely outcome of capitalist societies." (Hugonnier, 2021). This use of title as reference to ecological crisis, creates the narrative that to change we need a new approach, an immersive one, where we acknowledge our interrelation with the more than human, moving away from a dualistic view point of hierarchy. The analogue film physically interacting with the organic environment and the immersive audio invite the viewer to ask, how can we reconnect not only to our natural environment; our home, but also to each other? 

For oppressive systems thrive on those who are oppressed being disconnected from one another.

To reconnect is an act of resistance.