November 1–30, 2023
e-flux Film is very pleased to present Rosa Barba’s Outwardly from Earth’s Center (2007, 22 minutes) as the November 2023 edition of our monthly series Staff Picks.
Outwardly from Earth’s Center is a fictitious narrative about a society on an unstable piece of land that is in danger of disappearing. The situation requires the population’s collective initiative in order to secure their survival both as a society and as individuals. The fictional setting is reference to Gotska Sandön, a Swedish island north of Gotland in the Baltic Sea that moves by approximately one meter each year. Fictitious reports by experts draw a surrealist picture of the phenomenon. The experience of what might at first seem to be a beautiful documentary develops into a more abstract and slightly absurd picture of the inhabitants’ struggles and vulnerability.
Watch the film here.
About the artist
Rosa Barba is an artist and filmmaker who balances conceptualism with a distinctly personal vision in her work. She merges films, sculptures, installations, live performances, text pieces, and publications that are grounded in the material and conceptual qualities of cinema. Her film works are situated between experimental documentary and fictional narrative, and are indeterminately situated in time. They often focus on natural landscapes and human interventions in the environment, and probe into the relationship between historical record, personal anecdote, and filmic representation. Barba’s work has been exhibited at institutions and biennials worldwide, including Villa Medici, Florence (2022); Luhring Augustine, New York (2022); Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2021); Cukrarna, Ljubljana (2021, 2022); Yokohama Triennial (2020); Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Turku, Finland (2020); CCA Kitakyushu (2019); Armory Park Avenue, New York (2019); Kunsthalle Bremen (2018); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2018); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Palacio de Cristal, Madrid (2017); Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan (2017); Vienna Secession (2017); Malmö Konsthall (2017); CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (2016); Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (2016); Albertinum, Dresden (2015) and at the MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA (2015). Barba participated in the 15th Lo Schermo dell’Arte, Italy (2022), 7th Beaufort Triennial, Belgium (2021); 32nd São Paulo Biennial (2016); 53rd and 56th Biennale di Venezia: Making Worlds (2009, curated by Daniel Birnbaum); All the World’s Futures (2015, curated by Okwui Enwezor); 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2014); 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Performa, New York (2013); International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias, Colombia (2014); and Liverpool Biennale (2010). She holds a professorship in Fine Arts at the University of the Arts, Bremen.
About the series
Staff Picks is a monthly streaming series on e-flux Film of recommended videos designed to disrupt the monotony of an algorithm. Before the end times of big data, we used to discover suggested content along dusty shelves in video rental stores, where Post-it notes scribbled by shift workers implored us to experience the same movies that made them guffaw, scream, or weep. Sometimes the content bored us, sometimes it overwhelmed us, and sometimes, as if by magic, it was just right. e-flux invites you to relive this rental store mode of perusal, with personalized picks curated through judgment that does not take into consideration your viewing history.
For more information, contact program [at] e-flux.com.