Catalogue > At random

The film takes its starting point in several research trips to the West Bank, especially to the city of Hebron. We are confronted with photographs, and with still images, depicting ? in a rather abstract and distanced manner ? various situations: a model of ancient Jerusalem in a Museum, a check-point with its massive security architecture squeezed into a historical building, houses, walls, objects. In between, sequences of moving image appear that show a chain link fence above a shopping alley in Hebron, built to protect Palestinians from settlers throwing stones at them. The continuous, but halting, camera movement facing the horizontal fence disturbs our perception and sense of orientation. Still and moving images alternate with short texts, establishing a rhythm that does not only connect ? without always explaining ? what is seen, but introduces a narrative that articulates the interrogation of image and text. Contrary to a conventional image of Palestine and the conflict as emphasized ? and exploited ? by the mass media and contrary to dominant documentary practices, Selander turns away from a documentary exposition and instead ?reflects on and projects layers of control, dream and confinement, both in relation to the place and its history and to problem of showing and saying it? (Selander).

LINA SELANDER (b. 1973) lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Lina Selander works mainly with moving images in film and video, but also with photography, text and sound. Her works are often installations where these different medias and components converge and interrelate to one another. She is interested in the image?s ability and lack of ability to reproduce time, experience and memories and she explores how different narrative forms and techniques transform and change a story. Her works investigate film as medium, examining its possibilities and limitations as form of expression, and they often raise questions about history and authenticity. Selander?s work has been shown at Bonniers Konsthall, Moderna Museet and Index Foundation and in international group shows, biennales and festivals, for example in the Bucharest Biennale 2010, Institute of Contemporary Art in London, The Netherlands Media Art Institute in Amsterdam and Transmediale 05 in Berlin where she received an honourable mention from the jury. She has also received the Maria Bonnier Dahlin Foundation Grant (2005) and The Edstrand Foundation Art Prize (2008). She is also represented in the next Manifesta Biennal, 2012 in Belgium.