Athina Rachel Tsangari has created both a film and a projection installation
for the DesteFashionCollection 2012, commissioned by art collector Dakis Joannou.
Entitled THE CAPSULE, it is a Greek Gothic mystery inspired by the work of the young Polish artist Aleksandra Waliszewska.
The film will première on the international film festival circuit this Fall.
Special work-in-progress screening at dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel, Germany on June 10, 2012.
THE CAPSULE will be opening the exhibition’s film maker focus program, a series of monographic screenings that highlight “directors who have helped to shape our view of the contemporary world, and our positions within it”. Athina Rachel Tsangari’s mini-retrospective will also include screenings of “Attenberg” (2010), “The Slow Business of Going” (2001) and “Fit” (1994).
the story
Seven young women. A mansion perched on a Cycladic rock.
A series of lessons on discipline, desire, discovery, and disappearance.
A melancholy, inescapable cycle on the brink of womanhood — infinitely.
the installation
window installation at
Barneys New York
660 Madison Avenue
June 5 — July 8, 2012
The CAPSULE installation repurposes digital 3D technology to create a kaleidoscopic illusion apparatus, a modern-day adaptation of early cinema’s “Kinetoscope”. It invites an unsuspecting audience of passers-by to enter an adventure of visual perception, dependent on their distance from the screen and their respective heights. Viewers are invited to either fully engage and “discover” the story unfolding on the screen, or fleetingly experience the images as mysterious, oneiric tableaux.
A single screen simultaneously shows two separate movies, constructed from the same story, yet juxtaposing and amplifying each other as twin narratives. Normal-speed scenes are punctuated by extreme-slow-motion shots taken at different camera angles, generating a stereoscopic narration in doubles.
The triangular lattice placed before the screen operates as a kaleidoscope in itself, reflecting the images in a new set of distortions. Some of the lattice cells contain mirrored drawings by Aleksandra Waliszewska, only visible in ghostly reflections, adding a new dimension for viewers to discover.
DesteFashionCollection
The DesteFashionCollection is a novel approach to evaluating and interpreting fashion conceived by the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art.
Each year the Foundation commissions artists to select five articles of clothing or accessories created that year. Inspired by their selections, the artists/curators create an original work — the goal is to draw parallels between the actual objects and the artist/curator’s interpretations, which will lead the viewer to a deeper understanding of how fashion can be perceived by the experienced eye.
2012 edition by
Athina Rachel Tsangari
Athina has curated an haute couture “capsule” for the DesteFashionCollection 2012, selecting works by young, avant-garde designers who boldly challenge the boundaries of fashion as wearable sculpture.
The curated pieces feature in both her film and projection installation, THE CAPSULE, re-agitating the ongoing, essential dialogue between cinema, fashion, and the fine arts.
A distinguished international all-female cast of seven is participating, including Ariane Labed, winner of the Coppa Volpi for Best Actress at the 2010 Venice Film Festival for Tsangari’s “Attenberg”, Clémence Poésy, known for her roles in the “Harry Potter” series and Danny Boyle’s “127 hours”, and Isolda Dychauk, the lead in Sokurov’s “Faust”.
conceived and directed by
Athina Rachel Tsangari
written by
Athina Rachel Tsangari & Aleksandra Waliszewska
commissioned by
Dakis Joannou & The DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art
for the
DesteFashionCollection 2012
fashion designers
Sandra Backlund
Bordelle
Ying Gao
Cat Potter
Isabelle Vigier
Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton
Athina Rachel Tsangari & Vassilia Rozana
cast
Ariane Labed
Clémence Poésy
Isolda Dychauk
Evangelia Randou
Aurora Marion
Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Sofia Dona
director of photography
Thimios Bakatakis
art direction
Athina Rachel Tsangari
hair
Daniel Babek
make-up
Evi Zafiropoulou
editing
Matt Johnson
animation & visual effects
Zina Papadopoulou & Petros Papadopoulos (Oval Image)
sound design
Leandros Ntounis
artwork
Aleksandra Waliszewska
installation design
Sofia Dona & Dimitris Theodoropoulos (hiboux.gr)
Matt Johnson (Haos Film)
creative engineering
Matt Morton, Daniel Pippenger & Jelmer Steenhuis
presented with the support of
LG Electronics America
RealD Inc.
filmed on location
Hydra Island, Greece
produced by
Maria Hatzakou, Kyriacos Karseras & Athina Rachel Tsangari
a Haos Film production
www.thecapsule.info
Athina Rachel Tsangari
Athina Rachel Tsangari works as a filmmaker and projection designer in her native Greece and the US. Her graduation thesis at the University of Texas at Austin, “The Slow Business of Going”, a low-fi sci-fi road movie, travelled the world to critical acclaim, and was acquired by MoMA for its permanent film collection. She designed the video projections for the 2004 Olympics Opening Ceremony, and the celebrated large-scale, live projections for the opening of the Bernard Tschumi-designed Acropolis Museum (2009). She co-founded, and was artistic director of the historic for contemporary avant-garde cinema Cinematexas International Short Film Festival in Austin, Texas (1996-2007).
She is the co-founder and principle producer of Haos Film, a filmmaker-run production studio based in Athens, Greece.
Among her credits as producer are three films directed by Yorgos Lanthimos: “Kinetta” (2005), “Dogtooth” (2009), and his latest film “Alps” (2011).
Her second feature “Attenberg” premièred in competition at the 2010 Venice Film Festival, where it won the Coppa Volpi Award for its lead, Ariane Labed, and went on to win 13 more awards at festivals worldwide. It was Greece’s Best Foreign Language Film submission to the 2011 Academy Awards.
Her upcoming feature “Duncharon” was awarded the ARTE France Cinéma Award for best project at the International Film Festival Rotterdam CineMart 2012.
www.haosfilm.com
Aleksandra Waliszewska
Born in 1976, Aleksandra Waliszewska lives and works in Warsaw. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Her main artistic activity is painting. She has presented over 20 solo exhibitions, and received Polish Ministry of Culture scholarships on numerous occasions. She collaborates with the international group Frederic. Her work has been published by: We Dance The Skull, FUKT, United Dead Artists, Les Editions Du 57, Drippy Bone Books, Editions Kaugummi.
http://waliszewska.blogspot.com/
http://waliszewska.tumblr.com/
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): ISOLDA DYCHAUK, ARIANE LABED, EVANGELIA RANDOU FASHION ITEMS: LINGERIE BY BORDELLE / PHOTOGRAPHS (C) DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): ARIANE LABED & ISOLDA DYCHAUK FASHION ITEMS: HAIR COAT BY SANDRA BACKLUND BLACK ?GREEK DRESS? BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE: ARIANE LABED FASHION ITEMS: “PLAYTIME” LIGHT-SENSITIVE INTERACTIVE DRESS (SUPER ORGANZA AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES) BY YING GAO ?PERNILLA LOOK 2? SAPELE WOOD SHOES BY CAT POTTER PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): CLÉMENCE POÉSY & ARIANE LABED FASHION ITEMS: “PLAYTIME” LIGHT-SENSITIVE INTERACTIVE DRESS (SUPER ORGANZA AND ELECTRONIC DEVICES) BY YING GAO / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): ISOLDA DYCHAUK, AURORA MARION, CLÉMENCE POÉSY, ARIANE LABED, EVANGELIA RANDOU, DENIZ GAMZE ERGÜVEN, SOFIA DONA FASHION ITEMS: LINGERIE BY BORDELLE / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): ARIANE LABED & CLÉMENCE POÉSY FASHION ITEMS: HAIR COAT BY SANDRA BACKLUND BLACK “GREEK DRESS” BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE: AURORA MARION FASHION ITEMS: BLACK “GREEK DRESS” BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA / PHOTOGRAPHS DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): EVANGELIA RANDOU & ARIANE LABED FASHION ITEMS: HAIR COAT BY SANDRA BACKLUND GOLD-PLATED COLLAR BY MARC JACOBS FOR LOUIS VUITTON ?PERNILLA LOOK 2? SAPELE WOOD SHOES BY CAT POTTER BLACK ?GREEK DRESS? BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM TOP): ALEKSANDRA WALISZEWSKA, DENIZ GAMZE ERGÜVEN, SOFIA DONA, CLÉMENCE POÉSY, EVANGELIA RANDOU, ISOLDA DYCHAUK, ARIANE LABED FASHION ITEMS: SILK PLISÉ HEADPIECE BY SANDRA BACKLUND GOLD-PLATED AND WHITE LEATHER COLLARS BY MARC JACOBS FOR LOUIS VUITTON BLACK “GREEK DRESS” BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE (FROM LEFT): SOFIA DONA, ISOLDA DYCHAUK, EVANGELIA RANDOU, YING GAO, CLÉMENCE POÉSY, DENIZ GAMZE ERGÜVEN FASHION ITEMS: BLACK “GREEK DRESS” BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROU
APPEARING HERE: ARIANE LABED FASHION ITEMS: SILK PLISÉ HEADPIECE BY SANDRA BACKLUND GOLD-PLATED COLLAR BY MARC JACOBS FOR LOUIS VUITTON SOIE SAVAGE BLACK “GREEK DRESS” BY ATHINA RACHEL TSANGARI & VASSILIA ROZANA / PHOTOGRAPHS @ DESPINA SPYROUREAD ALSO: FIBER OPTICS INSTALLATIONS by CARLO BERNARDINI