Current Residents Michaela Schwentner
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Michaela Schwentner, re-ASSEMBLY (Installation view), 2020. Photo by Michaela Schwentner
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Michaela Schwentner, re-BIRDING (production still), 2023
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Michaela Schwentner, re-GEO / rendering reconstructions of desire (film still), 2021
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Michaela Schwentner, re-WEAVING (film still), 2024
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Michaela Schwentner, re-WEAVING (film still), 2024
Michaela Schwentner’s artistic practice is driven by investigations and negotiations of the absent: Utopia, longing, places of longing, the projection surface of film as a source of reflection or archives whose historically representative content always refers to something vanished, past, lost, forgotten, concealed or underrepresented in history, society and culture.
In her work, researched and fictionalised material, assembled and recontextualised, opens up the space for various reflections. In terms of technique and content, she concentrates on reconstructions of structures and economic conditions of social patterns as well as on (moving) image production.
Starting from the island of Suomenlinna, where I am staying and which is also part of the history that interests me, I would like to continue my ongoing work series KOMPLIZINNEN, which includes my recently completed films re-WEAVING / a feminist fabric and re-BIRDING, as well as my current film project re-SISTING. I would like to focus on female historiography in relation to the Finnish Civil War.
During my stay in Helsinki, I would like to conduct research on the history of the Red Guard women in general and on personal stories in particular. I also examine the language and form, specifically the extensiveness and emphasis with which stories are told. I can easily find the most detailed information on the activities of male participants in the war, but what remains of the female fighters except bare figures and statistics?