Regards
Croisés (Slides taken to and in Abidjan in January
2001)
2 slide
projections of 80 slides each
Dimensions variable
2001
Regards
Croisés, “crossed gazes,” is the title
of Isabell Heimerdinger’s slide projection work. The
slides projected onto 2 orthogonal walls from 2 projectors
tell at least three different stories. The 80 slides to
the left are images of photographic works of well-known
European and American artists, such as Wolfgang Tillmanns,
Rineke Dijkstra, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Bruce Nauman et al. Heimerdinger
brought these pictures with her to Abidjan, invited by the
Goethe institute to teach a workshop on photography. The
second projection shows slides the artist took during her
stay in the Ivory Coast: tourist pictures, snap shots, documentations
of the daily life of this West African metropolis, shaken
as it was by frequent military coups.
The third story emerges from the juxtaposition of the two
sets of pictures. At first glance the viewer is taken in
by the discrepancy between the well-composed staged photographic
images, and the quick snapshot-style slides. But in time,
the artistic photographs seem more and more artificial,
their differentiation from Heimerdinger’s less clear,
and a simple dialogue between the staged and un-staged (the
content and purpose of the workshop), between Europe and
Africa, seems less and less possible. We are confronted
with the same questions Heimerdinger was confronted with
in Africa, namely, that of mediation, and the difficulty
of assigning (role) models.
After a short period of being presented with the Western
art images, the students in Heimerdinger’s workshop
(professional photographers from West African countries)
split into two opposed groups. One refused to participate,
resisting the “colonialization of the gaze,“
and hence making it clear that the imported role models
were of no relevance to them. The others seized the occasion
as an opportunity to broaden their view. The artist, hoping
for a stimulating collaboration, was not only confronted
with a high-pitched emotional conflict, but also attacked
for assuming a position she had never consciously taken.
The idea to engage this polarity of positions in a work
came to her towards the end of her trip, after most of the
pictures had been taken. She was surprised how accurately
the dual slide projections were able to raise multiple questions:
of educational models; relevance; the failure of communication;
teaching and learning; and art and real life.
