Umdrehen(The Turn)
2022/23
Single-channel 4K video projection with sound, Printed voile
Santiago Mostyn & Susanna Marcus Jablonski
Through film, hanging textiles and skeletal ceramic sculptures, Susanna Jablonski and Santiago Mostyn’s new installation examines the role of image making in relation to history, looking closely at how images of historical violence, and their appropriation, might shape our understanding of the present day.
Their new film, Umdrehen, juxtaposes audio from the 1981 testimony of a German naval sergeant, Reinhard Wiener – who partially filmed the mass murder of Jewish residents of Liepaja, Latvia in the summer of 1941 – with images recorded by Jablonski and Mostyn at the site of the massacre in 2021. The artists’ camera moves through the landscape in response to Wiener’s description of what he saw that day, taking the viewer into the same forested, coastal landscape and finally to the trench where the atrocities took place.
Characterised as a wartime trophy, Wiener’s archival footage later circulated as evidence in the Holocaust trials and as material for documentary and feature films but remainsdeliberately not shown here. The artists’ installation questions the function and agency of the camera in describing history, asking how historical events leave traces in landscapes, and how one can approach, retell, or represent a horrific event without reproducing its depiction of violence.
A group of six ceramic sculptures created by Susanna Marcus Jablonski, were developed by the artist in parallel with the research and editing of Umdrehen. Conceived as ‘shelves’ for carrying small objects, they are at the same time support structures reminiscent of skeletons, carrying the weight of the histories projected into the room.
Camera: Santiago Mostyn
Sound recording: Susanna Jablonski
Editing: Susanna Marcus Jablonski and Santiago Mostyn
Sound design: Joen Szmidt Colour:
Nanna Dalunde
Narrative text: Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann
Testimony: Reinhard Wiener
Voice: Fenella Kerr
Commissioned by Malmö Konstmuseum
Curated by Inga Lace and Lotte Løvholm
With support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee
Their new film, Umdrehen, juxtaposes audio from the 1981 testimony of a German naval sergeant, Reinhard Wiener – who partially filmed the mass murder of Jewish residents of Liepaja, Latvia in the summer of 1941 – with images recorded by Jablonski and Mostyn at the site of the massacre in 2021. The artists’ camera moves through the landscape in response to Wiener’s description of what he saw that day, taking the viewer into the same forested, coastal landscape and finally to the trench where the atrocities took place.
Characterised as a wartime trophy, Wiener’s archival footage later circulated as evidence in the Holocaust trials and as material for documentary and feature films but remainsdeliberately not shown here. The artists’ installation questions the function and agency of the camera in describing history, asking how historical events leave traces in landscapes, and how one can approach, retell, or represent a horrific event without reproducing its depiction of violence.
A group of six ceramic sculptures created by Susanna Marcus Jablonski, were developed by the artist in parallel with the research and editing of Umdrehen. Conceived as ‘shelves’ for carrying small objects, they are at the same time support structures reminiscent of skeletons, carrying the weight of the histories projected into the room.
Camera: Santiago Mostyn
Sound recording: Susanna Jablonski
Editing: Susanna Marcus Jablonski and Santiago Mostyn
Sound design: Joen Szmidt Colour:
Nanna Dalunde
Narrative text: Tobias Ebbrecht-Hartmann
Testimony: Reinhard Wiener
Voice: Fenella Kerr
Commissioned by Malmö Konstmuseum
Curated by Inga Lace and Lotte Løvholm
With support from The Swedish Arts Grants Committee
