Red Impasto Jar, 2021, 35mm film transferred to 4K, 3′ 21″
The film portrays the state of a looted burial object made for afterlife within a three-minute single take. The film focuses on the detailed documentation of the jar with a slow 360° revolution on a robust industrial motor. This ancient Faliscan burial item dating back to 6th century BCE has been returned to the archeological museum (Mazzano Romano, Italy) by an unknown person, radically altered and damaged. The jar was first looted from a tomb at the necropolis, and then cemented into the structures of a house as a decorative element, from which it was later removed and donated into the museum in 2015.
Festivals Berlinale, Forum Expanded (2021
Directed, written, edited by JONNA KINA Cinematography VILLE PIIPPO Sound design JONATHAN FUHRER Archaeological advisor ORLANDO CERASUOLO Engineer consulting GREGOIRE ROUSSEAU In collaboration with Museo Archeologico Virtuale di Narce MAVNA Distribution: Av-Arkki – The Center For Finnish Media Art, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art E.V Production support: AVEK, Arts Promotion Center Finland, Finnish Cultural Foundation, Greta and William Lehtinen Foundation
“Red Impasto Jar is a blunt, single-shot filmic portrait of the piece of pottery, presented and enhanced in the metamorphic qualities of its shape and essence. Placed on the rotating platform of a robust industrial motor, it performs a slow and accurate choreography in front of the viewer’s gaze, making a 360–degree revolution on itself and standing out against a uniform, neutral background. As it progressively rotates, its structure begins to disarticulate, revealing an exploded backside which feels like a wounded body. The first time I watched the sequence, the tone of which is gentle and sharp at the same time, I was reminded of a sentence Kina said to me when I interviewed her a couple of years ago: “Objects look back at you, they have a life of their own”. Indeed, I had actually felt observed by that strange relic which exposes its vulnerability to the observer.”
–Excerpt from the text: Cultural heritage profanations and the ineffable of reality by Marta Federici