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Ingrid Wildi | | |
Processing the Invisibles I.
Video- und Photoinstallationen von
INGRID WILDI
Zur Vernissage am Donnerstag, 26. 06. 2008, 19:00 Uhr
Laden wir Sie und Ihre Freunde herzlich ein.
We cordially invite you and your friends to the opening reception on
Thursday, 26.06.2008, 7pm
Ingrid Wildi was born 1963 in Santiago de Chile and emigrated to Switzerland in 1981. Currently she lives and works in Geneva. Between 1985 and 1987 Ingrid Wildi studied at "Höhere Schule für Gestaltung", Zurich and graduated 1997 in Formative Art. Between 1998 and 2000 Ingrid Wildi was a postgraduate student at "Ecole Supérieur d'Art Visuele", Geneva.
Wildi uses video and photography to reflect on the social constructions that surround us. In her video essays that are strongly related to her own biographic experiences Ingrid Wildi surveys, much like an anthropologist, individuel and collective memory, as well as the perception of our everyday reality. In her works she focusses on how social difference is negotiated, how history is written, how social images are developed and constructed. Her videos and photography function like embroideries of human condition whose subtle and complex threads help us to consider our world and the world of others. Her works examine reality and truth, an artistic tradition that can be best described as Realism. Realism`s
attitude is a fondness for the marginal and peripheral, for breaks in the world's apparent coherence, for outsiders and loners.
Philip Ursprung who engaged himself in-depth in Wildi's works wrote that she stages the human physicalness especially by verbal expressions. Thereby the spoken, the "voice" interests her most. For her voices are like breath that goes on and on. As a former emigrant who "disappeared in a country and appeared in another" she is very sensitive for the spoken since history is closely connected to the spoken for humans who had to leave their countries. History is hence transmitted in ever changing, ever repeating and ever alienating ways so that it melts with fiction. While the art world currently factors out history as far as possible, Wildi's interest in the historic dimension is overriding. For her the interview is a tool to permeate the historic space to concurrently display its partial fictive nature. How humans articulate their history and how they establish a relationship with what is reality for them is recorded in Oral History form.
Portrait Oblique, 2005 offers a fragmented portrait of a man who lives on society's edge. The editing's non-linear, abrupt character invites the viewer to devote to interviews which were conducted at different times. The video tells the story of dual citizenship; of a man who is considered an alien in Chile as well as in Switzerland.
Los Invisibles, 2007 covers the stories of five Columbian immigrants who have lived in Switzerland for many years. Their sufferings, fears and reasons why they had left their country are being addressed. Wildi describes their status as illegal immigrants and the identity conflicts involved. Cultural and linguistic difficulties as well as problems of social integration are discussed. To allow her dialogue partner`s anonymity only body fragments are shown that give no clear hint at the persons interviewed. At the same time their societal situation as "Invisibles" is expressed.
About Gerado, 2008 is a video essay that is based on e-mail exchanges between an unknown painter from "Plaza de Armas" in Santiago de Chile. After Ingrid Wildi got in contact with him, he speaks about her brother Hans Rudolf, about his migration and his reality in Chile.
The spoken, even if it is not quite obvious, is addressed in her autobiographic photoseries, too. She displays herself in front of ten different companies she had been working during the period of 18 years. Questions of how to act hide behind these companies: What kind of works can the artist create when she does not speak German? If one does not speak the language, how does this circumstance change the perspectives of workplaces?
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.jpg "Contemporary Istanbul")
