Introduction
The exhibition at CCA Kitakyushu is Rosa Barba’s first solo presentation in Japan and shows an insight to her artistic work with film and cinematic sculptures. The film Outwardly from Earth’s Center (2007) is a fictitious narrative about a society on an unstable piece of land that is in danger of disappearance. The situation requires the population’s collective initiative in order to secure individual survival and to allow the society to remain. The concept’s background is somewhat realistic since Sandön moves approximately one meter per year. The fictitious reports from experts strengthens the surrealistic atmosphere that creepily offsets the experience of what is first considered a beautiful documentary, and second a more abstract, absurd picture of a people’s struggle and vulnerability.
The second film of the show The Empirical Effect (2010) serves as an example of the blurring of fact and fiction that is typical in Barba’s film work. The topographical starting point of the film The Empirical Effect is the area around Mount Vesuvius in Southern Italy. The protagonists of the film, which was shot in the summer of 2009, are all survivors of the last active eruption of the volcano in 1944, and live in the so-called “Red Zone” in the immediate danger zone of the volcano. The Empirical Effect charts the stories of a society whose lives are infused with an incredible tension, yet are paralyzed and docile.
Rosa Barba stayed at CCA Kitakyushu till June 29th, 2019.