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ONLY A FREE INDIVIDUAL CAN CREATE A FREE SOCIETY
80min / 2014 |
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“Only a Free Individual Can Create a Free Society" revisits discussions that Schwindt witnessed during her childhood, surrounded by radical leftwing individuals in Frankfurt, Germany. The text, which appears in various forms throughout the film, is based on an interview that she recorded over the telephone with a former radical leftwing activist who took part in the student movement in Germany in the 60s and 70s. She questions how freedom was, and is, understood, who has access to it and what political and social structures need to be in place to create a free society. Dancers in theatrical sets recite the interview while carrying out a precisely constructed choreography.
The film sets are positioned on a hill overlooking London. Large photographic prints reference cityscapes and country sites as well as domestic spaces. Eleven dancers carry out a tightly scripted choreography that has a strict rhythm between stillness and movement. The signification of the still and moving body is positioned through a precise relationship to space, other bodies, objects, speech and images. All elements of the production are understood within a choreographic schema; set, props, costume, lighting, sound, camera movement. Each element is equally important and should be read together as a melody with a strict rhythm that comes together through a script that might be better described as a score.
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| Grace Schwindt (b. 1979, Germany) is an artist and filmmaker based in London working with film, live performance and sculpture. Represented by Zeno X Gallery in Antwerp, her work is distributed by Argos Centre for Media and Art. Recent solo presentations include The Showroom, South London Gallery, Institute for Contemporary Arts and Whitechapel Gallery in London, Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe, Eastside Projects in Birmingham, Collective Gallery in Edinburgh, White Columns in New York and Contemporary Art Gallery in Vancouver. She received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award in New York in 2012 and was shortlisted for last year’s Jarman Film Award.
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| www.graceschwindt.net |
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