Enthusiasm: Films of Love, Labour and Longing is a result of two years of the artists’ research into films produced by Poland’s amateur film movement from the 1950s to the mid 1980s. Under Socialism, “leisure” in Poland was organised through factory-sponsored clubs and associations, the most popular of which were those that encouraged the making of 16mm films. This exhibition explores how such amateur endeavour became an asylum for the marginalized, for dreams of happiness, love and freedom. Working outside the “official” culture, the amateur or enthusiast frequently adopts a creative counter-cultural tone of tactical resistance and criticism. The film club enthusiasts inverted the familiar logic of work and leisure, becoming truly productive when pursuing their own passions.
Marysia Lewandowska is a Polish born, London based artist collaborating with Neil Cummings since 1995. As artists they have been interested in thinking about and working alongside many of the institutions that choreograph the exchange of values between art and its public. Research has played a central part in all their recent projects. Their Enthusiasm project has recently been shown at The Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, Kunst Werke in Berlin and Tapies Foundation in Barcelona. It explores the potential and relevance of working outside the “official” culture and its products, through amateur films made by polish factory workers under socialism.
Programmet för Box Samtal 2008 är sammansatt av Kalle Brolin och Rita Winde. Medarrangör för Samtal #10 är HFF – Högskolan för fotografi.