News

Recent articles on Marginalia (by Gracia) alongside news and exhibitions.

Feathery quartet

October 29, 2013 Gracia Louise

Recently landed: Feathery quartet, a new post on Elsewhere (by Louise)

Louise Jennison, A Flight of Twelve Southern Hemisphere Birds, 2013, artists' book

Meanwhile,

Quick costume change. Paint me, manga. A different kind of time machine awaits with #MIFF2017 film 51, IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD (D Sunao Katabuchi). "I knew I wanted to become a visual #storyteller first and I feel that I was able to discover that animation was the most interesting way to tell stories. Because we recreated a world that once existed, the audience sees more and more details every time they re-watch the film that leads to the discovery of different emotional experiences and perspectives. For those who are seeing In This Corner of the World for the first time, I hope they will see it more than once. By doing so, they will be able to experience the world and society that once existed in a very raw way. I'd like to think that In This Corner of the World is like a time machine where you can experience life and a culture of a different time."— #SunaoKatabuchi
#animation
#lastweekend
#thisissaturday
#55filmsin16days
#InThisCorneroftheWorld

With two white rats in a carry cage, mysterious radio message received. Saturday, in a Guardian of Energy costume designed by Alexandra Exter for the film #Aelita, 1924, ink, gouache, and pencil on paper.

#MIFF2017
#thisissaturday
#AlexandraExter
#costumedesign
#GuardianofEnergy

Draw my eyebrows like yours, Yuliya Solntseva. Frame me in a geometric shape, Nikolai Tsereteli. #MIFF2017 film 50 belongs to AELITA, QUEEN OF MARS (D Jakov Protazanov), which the New York Times referred to in 1929 as being "far more interesting to read about than to gaze upon". Pluto to that! Let me wear one of your Martian costumes, Alexandra Exter, and feel as though I am hovering in a machine age of aluminum, glass, acrylics, and steel. 1924, in motion.
#USSR
#YuliyaSolntseva
#NikolaiTsereteli
#AlexandraExter
#JakovProtazanov
#55filmsin16days

Be still the heart. Alexandra Exter's (1882–1949) costume and set design for '#Aelita'. If I can't live in a remote hut in '#Spoor', surrounded by deer, stoats, boars, and magpies with an eye for all things shiny, perhaps constructivist Mars, for something different.

#design
#costume
#MIFF2017
#constructivism
#AlexandraExter

"Behind the first sheep, trotted a second, a third, a fourth, until the whole flock stood around her at the spring. Each sheep had a tiny bell around its neck and as the sheep came there, the bells gave a gentle tinkle. But wonder of wonders, the little girl could hear them. She could now really hear. They were her father's sheep. There was the faithful, old white dog, trotting along and wagging its tail, as he looked up in the eyes of Barta, the shepherd, as much as to say, 'What’s all this about?'"
(From The disobedient kids : The disobedient children and other Czecho-Slovak fairy tales by Bozena Nemcová, illustrated by Artuš Schooner.)
#fairytale
#illustration
#CzechoSlovak
#ArtušScheiner
#BozenaNemcová

Last night, a #performance in the La Trobe Reading Room, to celebrate the 'Great Lady' of calisthenics, Miss Vera Hopton. A performance around our #GraciaLouiseLooped display, no less. While we couldn't make it along, reposting this rather surreal image from @library_vic. You can also see "a showcase of #calisthenics history in The changing face of Victoria exhibition, featuring items from the Vera Hopton archives."
#domedais
#inthelibrary
#artistsbooks
#aboutlastnight
#LaTrobeReadingRoom

Roe deer, fox, badger, and wild boar. With a hankering to stay in the forest ('Spoor') and read what author Olga Tokarczuk describes as a "metaphysical thriller", Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. But on this wet night, such plans will have to wait, William Blake. #MIFF2017 film 49 is taking us to the Democratic Republic of Congo with the promise of the Symphonic Orchestra of Kinshasa performing in an old warehouse the compositions of Arvo Pärt et al. FÉLICITÉ (D Alain Gomis), rounding out a three film day. Ready and crumpled as we'll ever be. Light the fire, hedgehogs. I'll be home soon.
#Spoor
#AlainGomis
#KasaiAllstars
#VeroTshanda
#55filmsin16days

In keeping with the theme of today. Illustration by Artuš Scheiner for Vyšehrad by Julius Zeyer (1841 – 1901). #fairytale
#Bohemia
#Vyšehrad
#illustration
#ArtušScheiner

Chasing 'The Giant' with a different kind of fairy tale, where 'every time he moved snow fell from him like icing sugar from angel wings.' #MIFF2017 film 48, because Bohemia, with 'the deer …. standing in snow that came almost up to their bellies [gazing] at us calmly, as if we had caught them in the middle of performing some ritual whose meaning we could not fathom' (Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead). Knocking on the wooden door covered in black tar paper at the Forum. SPOOR (D Agnieszka Holland), I await. "Even though you may consider it a dark eco-thriller, the film reflects our world and where we stand. I had no idea that the movie would be so up to date, since we were working on the project for a long time, and owing to events in the world, Spoor also proved to be political."— #AgnieszkaHolland (in interview with Martin Kudláč, Cineuropa, 2017)
#Spoor
#nature
#WilliamBlake
#OlgaTokarczuk
#nocountryforoldwomen

Illustration by Artuš Scheiner (1863 – 1938) for Under Command of Magic by J. Š. Kubín (c. 1920).
#fairytale
#illustration
#Bohemian
#ArtušScheiner
#UnderCommandofMagic

A last minute, last days #MIFF2017 schedule shuffle to play a game pétanque in Scandinavia, film 47 is THE GIANT (D Johannes Nyholm). I have played squash in Pakistan ('Girl Unbound'), now let's see if I can roll the ball as close as possible to the cochonnet (a tiny wooden ball, aptly called a piglet). Guided by a 200 ft giant, no less. "'To me, film-making is a #play. I want to feel free and fly unhindered through different cinematic expressions. I don't like to get trapped in a certain form or shape. I want to give the viewer a ride into the #unknown, into new exciting worlds where rules come and go and irrationality plays a big part. In this film the idea was to have a strong documentary fundament to make the audience relate to and identify with the characters, before gradually giving them stronger and stronger wings, so they could fly and watch the world from another perspective. The fairy tale aspect is important to me to communicate with the inner child in people, especially, since this story stems from the inner child in me."— #JohannesNyholm
#Jätten
#TheGiant
#thisisfriday
#BjörnOlsson
#55filmsin16days
#surrealistleanings

Vasilisa the Beautiful at the Hut of Baba Yaga, illustrated by Ivan Bilibin (1876 – 1942).
#fairytale
#illustration
#IvanBilibin
#BabaYaga
#Russianfairytale

Thinking about trees. Apple trees. (How perfect they looked in 'Self-Criticism of a Bourgeois Dog', #MIFF2017) And salted paper prints from collodion glass negative. ([Apple Tree Branch], Unknown photographer (French), c. 1856)
#trees
#nature
#orchard
#appletree
#thisisfriday

Siamese cushion, as emails are responded to and coffee is swilled, 1, 2, 3, 4.
#ZZZ
#home
#Lenni
#catsofinstagram
#siamesecatsofinstagram

Last night, at #MIFF2017, joy and sadness, lift and drop, the effort of pain and the effort of pleasure, occurring simultaneously, always, in every movement in and outside of a piece. Recurring motifs of delicate movements that become more delicate and wild movements that become more wild, if there was one thing I wanted more of in Elvira Lind's 'Bobbi Jene' it was dance and #process, but here, I am being greedy. "When I perform, I just try to stay really #honest and true to what I'm sensing inside my body, and that comes before any sort of thoughts or motives or desires. I'm staying true to what happens in the body first instead of what happens in my mind first."— #BobbiJeneSmith
(Image credit: Alex Apt)
#dance
#nature
#MIFF2017
#BobbiJene
#choreography

Though the gap between sessions is tight, very tight, I don’t want to miss #MIFF2017 film 46, with former #Batsheva dancer BOBBI JENE (D Elvira Lind). To breaking boundries. To creative independence. And staying true to your own voice. *heads into the darkened cinema just as the ads finish and the lights dim* Made it. Phew. Let’s go.
#dance
#process
#choreography
#55filmsin16days
#batshevadancecompany

Full circle. Leaving Pop Aye (Bong) the elephant. A square as a gathering point, hostile design in public spaces to discourage lingering, sleeping, and all things inappropriate (at the Comedy Theatre), and the promise of a little performance art. #MIFF2017 film 45, THE SQUARE (D Ruben Östlund). "I think that everybody has a relationship to the topics and the thematics of 'The Square'. I really, really hope that people will still be interested in going to the cinema to both be entertained and laugh, but at the same time have something to deal with when you leave the cinema. To talk about what you have seen. I'm #curious, very curious."— #RubenÖstlund (in interview with Scott Roxborough)
#TheSquare
#hostiledesign
#ComedyTheatre
#55filmsin16days
#hostilearchitecture

Vincent van Gogh’s 'Women Picking Olives' (1889). For his mother and sister. "I hope that the painting of the women in the olive trees will be a little to your taste—I sent [a] drawing of it to Gauguin, . . . and he thought it good. . . ." Thinking about nature. And human nature.
#nature
#olivetree
#thisisthursday
#VincentvanGogh
#WomenPickingOlives
(Image source (detail): The MET)

'From now on it's just you and me.' Two peas in a pod, 'old, fat and homeless,’ umbrella aloft. Returning to homeland, peace, possibly, and nature, #MIFF2017 film 44, POP AYE (D Kirsten Tan). "….because #elephants, both in Thailand and in the wider world, …. kind of symbolise hopelessness. So much of the forest in #Thailand has been cut down…. So then a lot of times these elephants have become forced to live among men. So then this idea of finding a #home and that home still exists also came about when I was thinking about elephants."— #KristenTan (in interview with Jeremy Elphick, 4:3, 2017)
#nature
#habitat
#homeland
#conservation
#55filmsin16days

Grace Cossington-Smith (1892–1984), 'Kuringai Avenue', 1943, oil on composition board.
#inthegallery
#cathedrallike
#betweenfilms
#thisisthursday
#GraceCossingtonSmith

Quick costume change. Paint me, manga. A different kind of time machine awaits with #MIFF2017… https://t.co/IWQFYVhRjZ
about 12 hours ago
With two white rats in a carry cage, mysterious radio message received. Saturday, in a Guardian… https://t.co/75Eae4ISDH
about 12 hours ago
Draw my eyebrows like yours, Yuliya Solntseva. Frame me in a geometric shape, Nikolai Tsereteli.… https://t.co/d4ROEiXwzQ
about 15 hours ago
Be still the heart. Alexandra Exter's (1882–1949) costume and set design for '#Aelita'. If I… https://t.co/VzR9OOj5My
about 17 hours ago
"Behind the first sheep, trotted a second, a third, a fourth, until the whole flock stood around… https://t.co/NhG4v3cPkj
about 19 hours ago
Last night, a #performance in the La Trobe Reading Room, to celebrate the 'Great Lady' of… https://t.co/70963FvWaw
about 20 hours ago
Roe deer, fox, badger, and wild boar. With a hankering to stay in the forest ('Spoor') and read… https://t.co/qGIUEyP8mF
about a day ago
With a hankering to stay in the forest (#Spoor) and read Olga Tokarczuk's Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. #animaltale #MIFF2017
about a day ago
In keeping with the theme of today. Illustration by Artuš Scheiner for Vyšehrad by Julius Zeyer… https://t.co/yNQ3JrJ6su
about a day ago
Chasing 'The Giant' with a different kind of fairy tale, where 'every time he moved snow fell… https://t.co/Jt21yJSo11
about a day ago