Art Office

“When the child was a child…” Wim Wenders opened his film Wings of Desire with that line of poetry by Peter Handke, and that is how Iratxe Jaio also opens her short film Under the Wing. Wenders was able to have angels in Berlin listen in on the thoughts of passers-by. The artist lets in Under the Wing Iñaki Van Gorkum Jaio, the artist's then ten-year-old son, did the same, but in Rotterdam.

Iñakis city is the quiet Rotterdam during the lockdown. From high vantage points, Jaio filmed the empty city, the city in which the people have almost completely disappeared. They sometimes stand in line, one and a half meters away. Or the camera finds men dressed in suits, with freshly disinfected mudguards in front of their mouths. The protagonist – T-shirt on, hat on – writes down the thoughts of those who live in the city. The boy collects sheets of paper and stores them in an endless archive full of boxes. The contents of all those filing boxes begin to whisper, "I've washed my hands." "Don't cough, don't cough." "I have nothing to protect myself." When Iñaki places the box in his arms in one of the racks, the film ends.

Why did you decide to create a work with your son?
“When the lockdown started, it was a confusing period for everyone, but especially for children. This film was a way to do something with my son, to look at the situation from a distance, to be able to remember the events later. The movie I'm referring to Wings of desire, is set in 1987 Berlin, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just like in Wenders' film, I use the historical context as a stage for a fictional storyl.' 

It was important to Jaio that it wasn't just a mother and son project: it's a way to connect and share with others. Jaio: 'This art project transcends the personal. The project started on social media, we asked people to whisper and send sentences. The recordings poured in, not only in Dutch, but also in Basque, Spanish and English. It yielded more than two hundred whispered submissions in about twenty different languages, from all over the world. We were separated, but the will to be connected was clearly there.'

Is the City Archives where you filmed a metaphor for collective memory?
'We filmed on the roofs of Rotterdam: from SKAR, CBK Rotterdam and the Groothandelsgebouw. And the City Archives let us film inside. That's when my son writes down the whispers, collects them, and puts them away in the City Archives to safeguard them for the future. I struggled with the end of the film: what to do with the thoughts and the papers they are written on? I wanted to add them to the memory of the city, literally but also symbolically. We thought about the library, but it was closed. Someone suggested we approach the City Archives. That's a great location, the space is beautiful. But the idea of ​​an archive containing the city's history is also very important.'

You usually work together with Klaas van Gorkum, as an artist duo. Your work is both poetic and political: always willing to expose power structures. Does this film fit within your oeuvre?
'We usually work narratively, fictitiously and documentary. We often assume artifacts from the past and how they function in the present. With this film I made an artifact for the future, a testimony of what happened during the pandemic.'

What value did the work contribution PPR have for this project?
'The PPR contribution and CBK Rotterdam are important because they represent a public platform, a relationship with an art institute. The film came before the PPR, but the application allowed the film to be produced professionally. The contribution allowed us to include cellist Iván Nogueira in the project to compose the music, as well as sound designer Ting Fung Cheung, who helped us with all the audio files that were sent in.'

Is the low-threshold aspect of PPR more desirable than the normal application procedure, which takes longer and focuses more on the desired outcome of projects for which applications are submitted?
'The assessment system is there for a reason: it forces you as an artist to formulate your ideas clearly. A committee offers external evaluation of what you are doing. But for us, the PPR was a godsend at that time.'

Temporary work contribution PPR

Om to help artists during the corona lockdowns to keep their professional practice up CBK Rotterdam launched the Temporary Work Contribution Production, Presentation and Research (PPR) for visual artists who are registered with CBK Rotterdam. Divided into two rounds in 2020 and 2021, eventually received almost two hundred artists a contribution† The result of the temporary work contribution is bundled in a publication in which we, together with a few artists, look back and look forward. This is one of fifteen interviews from the publication.

Text: Machteld Leij
Photos: Mark Bolk