Hannah Collins: Current History

”la Caixa” Barcelona/Madrid, 2010

In 2008 I curated Current History, a large show of Hannah Collins’s photographs and film installations. It debuted at Obra Social Fundación “la Caixa”  Barcelona, traveling to “La Caixa” Madrid; ARTIUM, Centro-Museo Vasco de Arte Contemporaneo, Vitoria-Gasteiz; and then to the Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá (where it was expanded and retitled La Revelación del Tiempo, co-curated with Maria Belén Saez de Ibarra).

Hannah’s films mix documentary observation with staged re-enactment to explore marginal communites. The 5-screen La Mina describes life and culture in the large and established gypsy community of Barcelona. The 3-screen Parallel tells of three people who left three different African countries to resettle in three different European countries. The 2-screen Current History concerns family life in a remote and stagnating Russian village. Each film is accompanied by a suite of photographs, many at large scale.

Spanish/English and Catalan/English catalogues were published by “La Caixa”.

The Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá published a catalogue of La Revelación del Tiempo.

      

Some installation views from Madrid: