RROSE PRESENT LIFE, OR BURNING SHADOWS The collective ritual of the bonfires of San Juan, in which citizens burn old objects in order to purge themselves of the past and renew themselves for the summer solstice, is here transformed into an individual ritual for bringing light (giving birth) to our own shadows. A hand lights a flame that gives life to a silhouette’s shadow. It grows, moves, dancing with the flame until the flame consumes itself and dies: a metaphor for the three phases of life. Or is it a ritual act of giving birth to our shadow; the shadow which is a psychic element representing our worst nightmares, the monsters and demons hidden under a mantle of fear in the darkness of the individual or collective unconscious, which is then illuminated by the “transforming” fire in order to exorcise our own fears and worst enemies.
BASIC INFORMATION Original title: Life, o quemando sombras Author: Roser Gerona Ribas Year: 2013 Country: Spain Duration: 3’ 16’’ Soundtrack: silent www.rroserpresent.eu
ROSER GERONA RIBAS (Barcelona, 1962) She holds a 5 year university degree in Fine Arts from the Universidad de Barcelona and a Masters in Philosophy of Contemporary Art from the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona and the Miró Foundation. Her work combines artistic production, videography and theoretical reflection. Recent works look at the production of images as the result of a dialogue between criticism and artistic production, seeking convergences between “feeling / acting” and “thinking / reflecting” with respect to the systematic presence of scopic regimes in the politics of the image. She has participated in festivals such as ARKIPEL (Indonesia, 2014), LOOP (Barcelona, 2014), FONLAD (Portugal, 2014), FLUX (Barcelona 2014), NONBIENNALE The WAC (Web Art Center, 2014), MADATAC (Madrid, 2013), the International Film Poetry Festival (Greece, 2013), VIDEOLOOKING (Barcelona, 2012), CINE TORO (Colombia, 2012); FIVA (Argentina, 2012), CologneOFF (Germany), Ex Teresa Contemporary Art (Mexico, 2012) and the International Festival of Video Art in Camagüey (Cuba, 2009-2011).
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