Host
(2019)
Material: Textile.
Dimensions: H 347 x W 3300 cm.
Host consists of a large-scale curtain in which films about migration and climate change are shown. Both an artwork and an exhibition architecture, the installation hosts a film programme about migration and climate change, curated by Céline Condorelli.
The title of the installation names what it does – it *hosts*. This function usually belongs to the art institution as the host of artists, artworks and audiences. Condorelli’s installation changes the existing institutional and spatial conditions by presenting itself as a host, while also being a guest (or even a parasite) both in the space and exhibition programs.
Conventionally a presentation device, Condorelli’s curtain is both part of the display and on display. More than 30 meters long, it consists of four sections that enable various configurations, with semi-transparent windows allowing views across the space and into exhibitions or events taking place. In this way, the installation creates openings and boundaries that structure the experience of the space.
The installation hosted during almost one year a film program at Kunsthal Aarhus. Presented in eight parts – Land, Distance, Water, Air, Sea, Seed, Abstractions, and Enclosures – it combined documentaries, artists’ films and feature-length films dealing in some way with the consequences of living in a dangerously warmer world for people, animals and landscape.
The film programme included films by Ursula Biemann; Wang Bing; Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Véréna Paravel; Vittorio De Seta; Lav Diaz; Jorge Furtado; Inhabitants with Margarida Mendes; Karrabing Film Collective; Colectivo Los Ingrávidos; Sakis Maniatis & Yorgos Tsemberopoulos; Jumana Manna; Angela Melitopoulos & Angela Anderson; Peter Nadin, Natsuko Uchino & Aimée Toledano; Arjuna Neuman & Denise Ferreira da Silva; Artavazd Pelechian; Ben Rivers; Allan Sekula and Noël Burch; Cauleen Smith; Ana Vaz & Tristan Bera; and Saskia Olde Wolbers.
Host was executed by Kiem Ai Vien, Carl Frischknecht, Jette Gejl, Louise Haugaard Nielsen, Henning Kjeldsen, Muhamad Oso, Jaris Poulsen, Malou Steen, Tuoi Thi Ngyuen, Kim André Thomsen and Kim Vu.
