the european biennial of contemporary art
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artists

Eveli¯na Deicˇmane

1978, Valmiera, LT Lives in Riga, LT, and Berlin, DE

Nje Mechtaj I Nje Dumaj (Do Not Dream And Do Not Think Of It), 2008 Sound and video installation, dimensions variable

ROVERETO

Immagine_opt

There is an underlying sense of voyeurism present in Evelina Deicˇmane’s highly personal vision based on the trauma of belonging. A record player with a vinyl disc is displayed on a platform beneath a glass box, as though it is an artifact in an ethnographic museum. The disc manifests a hybrid quality: two halves cut through the middle and then glued together. The songs recorded on its two “antagonistic” halves evoke different moments in time and history. One half plays the favorite Latvian song of the artist’s grandmother, a tune she grew up listening to, but which was later forbidden by the Soviets. Singing this song to herself connected her back to the country where she once belonged, to a true identity that the song itself helped shape. The Russian song from the other half evokes another moment in the elderly woman’s life: a hopeless struggle with regime and the assault of sovereignty. The violent jumps between the two songs create a musical cacophony similar to the noise, the grandmother says, that the radio makes today. Deicˇmane’s video captures her grandmother’s face in close-up. Her expressions change together with memories of events recalled by the musical motifs. The artist jams contradictory feelings in this biographical portrait of injured emotions, vulnerability to historical change and upheavals of identity.


Location

ROVERETO

ADAM BUDAK: "PRINCIPLE HOPE"

EX PETERLINI, VIA SAVIOLI 20 – MANIFATTURA TABACCHI, P.ZZA MANIFATTURA 1 -STAZIONE FERROVIARIA, PIAZZALE ORSI, I-38068 ROVERETO, ITALY

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