ART-PRESENTATION: Sharon Lockhart-My Little Loves
As one of the very few contemporary artists equally talented and influential in both still photography and cinema, the work of Sharon Lockhart has engaged a rich and fascinating dialogue between two media whose deep affinities are all too often misunderstood. Lockhart’s early work drew frequent inspiration from the ‘70s art cinema canon so central to her aesthetic, restaging key emotional moments into abstractly theatricalized tableaux.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Museu Coleção Berardo Archive
Sharon Lockhart‘s engagement with conditions of childhood and adolescence serve as the foundation of her upcoming exhibition entitled “My Little Loves” at the Museu Coleção Berardo which opens in conjunction with this year’s DocLisboa film festival where Lockhart screens her film “Rudzienko” (2016), the second film in her Polish trilogy, the film was created over the course of three years in collaboration with the adolescent residents of the Youth Center for Socio-Therapy in Rudzienko, Poland. It is the second film of a trilogy that began in 2009 with “Podwórka”. While producing “Podwórka”, Lockhart met a young girl named Milena with whom she would establish a personal relationship that evolved over time, and continues to this day. As Milena entered her teenage years, she confided to Lockhart that she aspired to one-day write an autobiography. In an effort to facilitate this, Lockhart started working with Milena on a series of excursions and exercises over the course of a year of visits. When the teen later became a resident at the centre in Rudzienko, Lockhart was introduced to the other young women there, who she would also grow to care for deeply. Collaborating with theatre directors, movement therapists, philosophers, musicians and other creatives, Lockhart organized a series of generative workshops for the young women of the centre, aimed at promoting their self-expression, empowerment, and sense of agency. Through these interactions, the girls and Lockhart created films that explore personal and collective social interaction. The artist recounts that her friendship with Milena did not evolve through conversation, given that the two of them did not share a common spoken language, but rather through body language and exchanges of pictures from one another’s lives. The nine scenes that constitute “Rudzienko” similarly address moments of disjuncture that occur between communication and translation. The exhibition brings together Lockhart’s continued interest in the document and ephemera, including a Braille edition of Korczak’s book “How to Love a Child” (1919), and a new monoprint by Lockhart depicting the April 24, 1931 issue of “The Little Review”, an issue that was selected by adolescents from the Youth Center for Socio-Therapy in Rudzienko. The monoprint is accompanied by both English and, for the first time, Portuguese translations. “Milena, Jarosław”, a photographic triptych, presented in installation, reveals both an ambivalent and a playful relation with the camera. The images are installed on three architectural volumes arranged so as to withhold any totalising view, requiring viewers to navigate the space to see the triptych in its entirety. The choreographed movements of visitors and the gradual revealing of Milena’s face in the images function as a metaphor for the photographic process of exposure and disclosure. Also featured is a group of works depicting the young women of Rudzienko caught in motion against the Polish forest,“When You’re Free, You Run in the Dark”. Drawn from a comment made by one of the young women, the title of these works reflects the free association characteristic of the workshops. In all these works, the singularity of the children’s ways of experiencing existence corresponds to the diversity of means summoned by Lockhart.
Info: Curator: Pedro Lapa, Museu Coleção Berardo, Praça do Império, Lisbon, Duration: 18/10/17-28/1/18, Days & Hours: Daily 10:00-19:00, www.museuberardo.pt
