- Special event
As part of the Brussels Gallery Weekend, Palace and SensoProjekt are organizing a special screening of the documentary TANIA LIBRE, A STATE OF VULNERABILITY, a film by Lynn Hershman Leeson.
The screening will be introduced by Dagmar Dirkx (Argos) and Isabelle de Vischer-Lemaître (SensoProjekt). A Q&A will follow the screening.
TANIA LIBRE, A STATE OF VULNERABILITY, Lynn Herschman Leesen
US/DE, 73′, 2017, VO EN ST FR
Synopsis : After spending eight months in a Cuban prison for a performance in which she criticized the government, artist Tania Bruguera consults a psychiatrist specializing in post-traumatic stress disorder and Stockholm syndrome. From their conversation emerges a reflection on the revolutionary potential of art, all under the lens of artist Lynn Hershman Leeson and narrated by actress Tilda Swinton.
The documentary Tania Libre, A State of Vulnerability introduces us to Cuban artist Tania Bruguera – twice invited by KunstenFestivalDesArts in Brussels. This artist has developed an activist practice based on performances, the elaboration of processual works, and the situationalization of what she calls “useful art”.
This film shows her in conversation with doctor and psychoanalyst Frank Ochberg. Often questioned by the authorities following her performances – including the famous “Moi aussi j’exige” planned for the Place de la Révolution, and banned – the artist shares her trauma and recounts her memories of what happened when she was released from prison in Havana.
This conversation, punctuated by documents on his artistic work, reveals the artist’s vulnerability, as much as the red thread of his reasoning in the fight against censorship, in favor of dissidence and in favor of art defined as a basic social need! The opening words of this artist’s documentary (spoken by Tilda Swinton), quote the “Manifesto on Artists’ Rights” that Tania Bruguera drafted in 2012 at the invitation of the UN.
This exceptional documentary and testimony was made in 2016 by Lynn Hershman Leeson, multimedia artist and director of several landmark films on identity, technology and media in the service of surveillance. She received a Special Mention for her film work at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. She is also represented by Waldburger Wouters Gallery, which will be showing one of her iconic works as part of its back-to-school exhibition Seduction of a Cyborg, focusing on video, with the participation of Eli Cortiñas and Elen Braga.
In collaboration with Waldburger Wouters Gallery and the Centre du Film sur l’art.
curators Hari Prasad Sacré, Arshia Ali Azmat & Hoda Siahtiri | production Kaaitheater | co-production VUB Crosstalks & Cinema Palace | with the support of Sint-Lucas Antwerp, Constant
