It Is at This Point That the Need to Write History Arises (2024) + conversation with Constanze Ruhm and Laura Mulvey
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck 43 Gordon Square
Constanze Ruhm’s latest film È A QUESTO PUNTO CHE NASCE IL BISOGNO DI FARE STORIA makes a vital new contribution to her wider project: to give visibility to feminist art, film and history in the mirror of contemporary art. Drawing on Ruhm’s longstanding interest in, and research into, the Italian Women’s Liberation Movement (Rivolta femminile), the film revolves around the Italian feminist and author Carla Lonzi, a leading figure in the 1970a and 80s feminist movement.
Lonzi dedicated the last years of her life to researching a group of French, 17th century, proto-feminists and this unfinished project is the starting point, as well as an echo chamber, for Ruhm’s film. Rethinking Lonzi from a contemporary perspective, she highlights relevant feminist experiences across three centuries. While she weaves together a historical continuity where none was (visible) before, Lonzi’s concept of a fractured, fragmented temporality lies at the heart of È A QUESTO PUNTO… The film oscillates between fiction and reality, between real and invented documents and, at the same time, is itself an archive of feminist art.
Constanze Ruhm is a filmmaker, artist, author, and curator. She graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts in Vienna and the Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main. Since 1996, she has been teaching internationally as a professor of film and video art. In 2006, she became a tenured professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna.
Her latest film È A QUESTO PUNTO CHE NASCE IL BISOGNO DI FARE STORIA (2024) has been shown, among others, at FID Marseille (world premiere), Villa Medici Festival in Rome; Pravo Ljudski Festival Sarajevo; She Makes Noise Festival Madrid; Festival dei Popoli Florenz; Efebo d’Oro Palermo; diagonale Graz; Festival Image Ouverte, Paris; dokFilmfest Munich; Museum of Modern Art in Vienna.
Her films and installations explore the relationship between cinema, new media, and the archive, often focusing on subjects and procedures of casting and rehearsal. Her work addresses issues of representation and performativity, and their reciprocal relation to feminist historiography. Through a feminist lens, she re-examines film and art history, focusing on female film characters suspended between fiction and reality, documentation and fantasy. Her works are presented in both cinemas and exhibitions, consistently engaging with feminist perspectives.
www.constanzeruhm.net
Contact name:
Matthew Barrington