Kunsthuis SYB

Anna Franceschini’s residency period at SYB ends with a presentation of her research into domestic spaces and inhabited environments under the title of ‘The Guest Room’. This research brings together Franceschini’s interests in the exploration of the cinematographic qualities of space, such as movement and quiet, light and dark, and the artist’ more recent interests in the Dutch interior spaces and indoor life. Following those interests, in the past weeks at SYB Franceschini has developed a filmic study of interiors, visiting and filming a few Beetsterzwaag residents’ houses.

Parallel to this, Franceschini has invited guest artist Davide Savorani and guest curator Cecilia Guida to participate into an exercise of collective writing, revolving around issues of domesticity and the dynamics occurring between a host and a guest. This exercise, in particular, was made possible by the use of the digital platform ‘Your world of Text’, a software application, which appear as blank page editable by any visitor, where the changes made by the participants appear on the screen as they happen – thus supporting an idea of a collective authorship.

Those two different parts of the artist’s research, which will likely lead to the realization of one new feature film in the future, are now presented as fragments physically separated but conceptually linked in SYB’s space. The filmic part depicts a ‘sort of catalogue of different domestic environments or rooms’, while the collaborative text writing is a collection of shared thoughts that can be seen as the structure for a film script. As in previous works, here again the exploration of inhabited space is a means for the artist to get insight into the human landscape. Singular and collective, private and public dimensions are intermingled: the hosting (institution, local community and village) and the new guests (the artist and her colleagues) exchange their roles of guest and host; viewers and protagonists, persons and objects shift their positions. Davide Savorani’s words are an example of this. “The Greek word for the guest was Xenia, a term that defined a person that was a temporary member of a community even though it was clear that he/she didn’t belong to it. Now, I intend to shift the role of the community to that of the place. I am reflecting myself on a guest room while it’s reflecting on me.”

Anna Franceschini studied Media Studies and did the MA in Television, Cinema and Multimedia Production at IULM University in Milan. In 2009 and 2010, she was artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Her work has been displayed in solo and group exhibitions in Italy, Belgium, Egypt and the Netherlands. Her film and video work also has featured in Centre Pompidou, Paris; IDFA, Amsterdam; Pianola Museum, Amsterdam; and during the Cairo Video Festival. Anna Franceschini lives and works in Amsterdam.

The upcoming weekends a film screening program will be open to the public at SYB. The sreening program is part of the final presentation and the films shown are, chosen collectively by Franceschini, Savorani and Guida. The progam constitutes a further reflection on the theme, into the frame of the repertoire of cinema.

Screenings program

11 September // 13.30 -17.00
Teorema – P.P. Pasolini, 105′, 1968, IT
Enchanted – K. Lima, 107′, 2007, US

17 September // 13.30 -17.00
The Haunting – R. Wise, 112′, 1963, US
El Angel Exterminador – L. Bunuel, 89′, 1962, SP

18 September // 13.30 -19.00
Dogville – L. Von Trier, 178′, 2003, DN
Pollyanna – D. Swift, 134′, 1960, US