"Scenes From A Forgotten Land" Screening and Talk

This screening event is open to the public free of charge, and the film director, Mr. Hanspeter Ammann, will be here to host a talk on "PERSONAL INVOLVEMENT AND ART PRODUCTION" What is the relationship between our emotional invlovement with the people we portray and the final shape our art product? Please come join us!

Date: 11 Dec 2014
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Videotage
Address: Unit 13, Cattle Depot Artist Village, 63 Ma Tau Kok Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong

RSVP: http://goo.gl/zOgkeL

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z501m04AFQk[/youtube]

Hanspeter Ammann’s Scenes from a Forgotten Land occupies an ambiguous terrain between documentary observation and lyric poetry. For most of its half-hour length, we witness the ordinary routine of farm workers in North East Thailand - harvesting the rice and sugar cane on which their meagre existence depends, and finally transporting the crops to market. The harmonious images consciously evoke landscape painting, while Ammann’s signature technique of slowing down the action confers on the repetitive toil a sculptural gravity and nobility. At intervals, the subjects cheerfully return the camera’s gaze, as though acknowledging collusion in its romantic project. The artist is only too ironically aware that he can never pretend to understand a marginalised people we so habitually efface from consciousness. He sings of them nonetheless, finding an austere beauty in these lives of quiet integrity, and daring to speak his love.

Peter Matthews, Sight and Sound, London

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Hanspeter Ammann was born in 1953 in Zurich, Switzerland. He lives and works today in Zurich, Bangkok and in Shanghai where he runs Shanghai Studio, both an Art Gallery and Bar.

He started producing Art Videos in the late 70ies when Video Art was a relatively new art form In Europe. He is involved in many art projects in Bangkok and has just published ‚TAM THE BOXER’ his first book in Thai (v01d publication 2007).

His video work has been shown (selection) in: Marriot Center for Dance, Salt Lake City, USA 2007, Agent Provocateur , ( in Swiss movie theatres) 2007, Utah Art’s Festival, USA 2006, Nominated fort he 50 Best, German TV WDR, 2004, Identity and Heritage, Macau Art Festival, China, 2004, INVIDEO, Milan, Italy, 2003, CCCB, Barcelona, Spain, 2003, VIDARTE, Mexico, 2002, Impakt Festival, Utrecht, Holland, 2001, LUX, London, UK,2001 AND 1999 VIDEOLISBOA, the big prize of the city of Lisbon. 2000, Microwave, Hongkong, China, 1999, Itau Cultural, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1999, you are invited, Swiss Institute, New York, USA, 1998, AV Ark, Helsinki, Finland, 1997, MAGASIN, Grenoble, France, 1996, Casa Serralves, Porto, Lisbon, 1994, Transformaçoes, Lisbon, 1990, Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria, 1987, FRI ART, New York, USA, 1985, Video 84, Montreal, Canada, 1984, Phoenix, Frankfurt, Germany, 1981

Hanspeter’s videos have been broadcast on many European stations and he has won a number of prizes and awards at International competitions and festivals. In order to promote video art, this exciting form of artistic expression he started curating Internataional video art shows for museums and festivals some years ago.

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