Archives of the Ephemeral: Art, Time, and Transience
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- Apr 5, 2025
- 3 min read
April 8, 2025, CFZ Cultural Flow Zone, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy
The Ca’ Foscari University of Venice's conference will explore the theme of preserving ephemeral artworks from two different perspectives. Firstly, we will discuss works that were designed to be temporary and exist only for a short period of time, or under specific circumstances. These include artworks that were created with an awareness of their impermanence.
Secondly, we will examine artworks that became ephemeral due to external factors, such as precarious circumstances of creation, such as works by artists living in exile or unstable environments. These artists often face resource and visibility challenges, creating works that may become lost without a long-term preservation strategy.
As part of the first session, "Time-Based Art: how to preserve what is temporary?", a presentation will be given by Anna Frants, Elena Gubanova, and Alexandra Dementieva, showcasing selected works from the CYLAND MediaArtLab collection. The presentation will also include a screening of a curated selection of works from the CYLAND Video Archive. CYLAND Video Archive Program
Pim Zwier (Netherlands) All what is somehow useful / Alles Was Irgendwie Nützt, 2013
A multitude of animals brought together in a rhythmical sequence of photographs. The images blend together similar to the cross breeding of animals. An accumulation of bygone days, captured in photos, in which the animals are replaceable, but the same employees frequently reappear.
Years of studies and experiments on animals are reduced to a few images per second. The outcome of the research derived from the image or remains a mystery. Seeing is comparing; discovering similarities or differences, seeking for an ideal, gratification of curiosity, optimising utilisation.
‘Alles was Irgendwie Nützt’ is based on the historical glass plate photograph collection ‘Julius Kühn’ of the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
Pim Zwier is an independent media-artist / film maker. He obtained his MFA at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam in 2003. The artist makes documentaries, short films and video-installations. his films balance between documentary, experimental film and media-art. Zwier’s films and video installations were shown at different international festivals, exhibitions, and on television.
Heejeong Jeong (South Korea) Sweet Home, 2021
Apartments, which have become Korea’s representative residential space, are not simply houses, but have become an inevitable apex of economic and cultural desires. Focusing on the mountain behind the apartment complex, it questions the house again through neighbors as others and the outskirts abandoned in the development process.
Heejeong Jeong is very interested in the power of landscapes that are difficult to capture through the logic of reason, through photography and video. The artist uses unique colors and screen compositions to visualize symbols that are not easily read, revealing the dangers or fascinating moments embedded in ordinary daily life. At the 2017 Seoul International New Media Festival, she won the Audience Award for “The Red Room.” She was a member of the CYFEST-16 with the video House of Wind (2023).
Alexander Terebenin (Russia) 1959—2021 Horizon Line, 2009
Horizon Line is one of the key video installations by Alexander Terebenin. The work is based on numerous photographs capturing the walls of buildings in St. Petersburg. Traces of paint, plaster, and rust on peeling surfaces form dramatic landscapes — devoid of houses, trees, or people, these are empty and featureless places, resembling the earth in the first or last days of creation.
Horizon Line was presented at CYBERFEST-7 (2013) in Berlin at The WYE.
Alexander Terebenin graduated from the Architectural College in Leningrad. A professional artist and photographer, Terebenin also created art objects and installations. He participated in over 70 exhibitions in Russia and internationally. His works are held in the collections of the Museum of the History of St. Petersburg, the Kolodzei Art Foundation (New York, USA), as well as in galleries and private collections in Russia, the United States, Israel, Germany, Finland, and other countries.
“My interest in ruin and deconstruction appeared at the very beginning of my work in photography. I’m drawn to a certain sharpness and pain in these images, to the unexpectedly emerging graphic and color compositions — abstract or even surreal.
Over time, the growing number of images allowed me to group them into cycles and series. When I enter a new space, I almost automatically identify the objects and angles that demand to be captured.
Instead of the shame or disgust that these subjects often evoke in the average person, I experience a sense of delight and aesthetic satisfaction. This is not a perversion, but a way to see — and to show others — a broader spectrum of the Beauty that surrounds us.”
A. Terebenin
Learn more > Organised by the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, The Centre for Studies in Russian Art - CSAR, and Mapping Diaspora
