{"id":89145,"date":"2024-06-04T10:40:47","date_gmt":"2024-06-04T10:40:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/?p=89145"},"modified":"2024-12-16T08:53:34","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T08:53:34","slug":"bertille-bak-spotlight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/exhibitions-en\/bertille-bak-spotlight","title":{"rendered":"BERTILLE BAK. SPOTLIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exhibitions cycle: WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD? Part 4<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bertille Bak\u2019s solo exhibition is being organised in the context of SPOTLIGHT, a new programme launched by EM\u03a3T|The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, which aims to present a more focused survey of the work of one artist in its collection and, in doing so, allowing audiences to gain a better understanding of that artist\u2019s practice. SPOTLIGHT will feature works from the museum\u2019s own collection, as well as loans of artists\u2019 works from other institutions and the artists themselves.<\/p>\n

Bertille Bak\u2019s art, largely the result of her particular background and upbringing in a family of coal miners in the French North, is a fertile fusion of personal history and creative exploration. In her work, aspects of the everyday become elements of fantastical myth-making. Her creative practice brings together film and installation, participatory strategies and collectivity mechanisms employed by different communities, in a playful and often absurd manner. Bak approaches the communities she each time focuses on, in an experiential manner within a framework of social geography. Her imaginary nourishes\u00a0 – not without a sense of tongue-in-cheek affection \u2013 from their habits and traditions. In asserting her unwavering commitment to empowering the voices of marginalised and disenfranchised groups, Bak reminds us of art\u2019s transformative, healing powers and of its ability to unite us all into one single global community. Her work as a whole bears testimony to a sense of humility and honesty, which she never fails to bring into her relationship with the communities she chooses to work with as she attempts to foreground the possibility to thwart the established order.<\/p>\n

Mineur Mineur (2022)<\/em> is a poignant exploration of childhood across the bleak landscapes of the mining industry around the world. Comprising five synchronised video projections, this riveting installation raises awareness on the experiences of children working in different mines in the global South: a silver mine in Bolivia, a coal mine in India, a gold mine in Thailand, a tin mine in Indonesia and a sapphire mine in Madagascar.<\/p>\n

In each of the videos, the children trek through the labyrinthine tunnels and passages of the mines, transforming the grim setting of child labour into an idiosyncratic universe of play. The contrast between their innocent joy and their condition of economic exploitation, serves as commentary on human resilience in the face of hardship. Set to a soundtrack made up of different recordings, accordion music and off-key sounds, Mineur Mineur challenges viewers to reflect on the complexities of childhood and the hard truths lurking beneath the surface of continuing child labour in contemporary globalised economies, at the same time that it is a call to action for a fairer, more equitable world.<\/p>\n

The exhibition also features Untitled (2009<\/em>), an installation in the museum\u2019s collection composed of doors from torn down houses in Barlin, in norther France, once the site of\u00a0 several coal mines, as well as Block 02, 03, 04, 07, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 29(2007-2023)<\/em>, a selection of drawings depicting the facades of all the coal miners\u2019 homes in Nord-Pas-de-Calais before either being renovated or demolished, at a time when the local government was attempting to reverse the town\u2019s post-industrial decline by embarking on a plan of gentrification that displaced the town\u2019s residents from their homes.<\/p>\n

Bertille Bak\u2019s work is also featured in the exhibition of works from the museum\u2019s collection on the 3rd floor, entitled Women, Together<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exhibitions cycle: WHAT IF WOMEN RULED THE WORLD? Part 4 Bertille Bak\u2019s solo exhibition is being organised in the context of SPOTLIGHT, a new programme launched by EM\u03a3T|The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens, which aims to present a more focused survey of the work of one artist in its collection and, in doing so, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":89381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-exhibition-post.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[195,35,34],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89145"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89145"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90360,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89145\/revisions\/90360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.emst.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}