Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze, The Invisible Hand of My Father, 2019. Film still.
The Film Club: The Invisible Hand of my Father
Live-Stream and Conversation
16.4 2021
Stockholm
In ”The Invisible Hand of My Father”, Gago Gagoshidze paints a portrait of his father and his right hand. Born 1953 in Georgia, the father belonged to the wave of migrants who after the fall of the Soviet Union came looking for work in the countries of Western Europe.
The Invisible Hand of my Father
Live-Stream and conversation.
Date: Friday 16 April 2021
Time: at 15.00–16.15
Place: online
Language: English
The film and the conversation is available until 18 April.
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The Invisible Hand of my Father, 2019
HD Video
24 mins
The film takes place in an altered state, as it is recorded after a workplace accident in which Gagoshidze’s father lost his hand in a cement-mixer. As a result he returned to Georgia and settled in a cabin in Racha, where he now lives a quiet life made possible by a monthly pension for the disabled provided from Portugal.
The hand hovers above him like a spirit in the magnificent surroundings of the mountains of Caucasus. It reminds us of the fact that the accident took place ”in the right time”: Right before the ”invisible hand” of the global market lost its grip. Thus the hand functions as an image of shifting economical landscapes – from the fall of the Soviet Union to the global financial collapse of 2008 – and a prosthetic with which a meaningful relationship cannot be formed.
The film was recently part of the Luleå Biennial 2020. The local landscape and the cracking earth that follows from the mining industry’s effects were the starting point for the exhibition that took place at Välkommaskolan, an evacuated high school in Malmberget – a community in the middle of a process of disappearing as a result of mining. Demanding working conditions and workplace accidents have long been present underground and at pellet plants near the mines.
About the Participants
Giorgi Gago Gagoshidze, born in 1983 in Georgia, is currently based in Berlin. He is interested in the production, circulation and the socio-political impact of moving images. In 2007 Gago graduated from Tbilisi state academy of arts. In 2016 he received his Meisterschule degree at Professor Hito Steyerl’s new media class at UDK Berlin. Gagos’s works has been shown internationally in various exhibitions such as The Luleå Biennial 2020, Kunsthalle Wien, steirischer herbst ’19, Graz, Mint, Stockholm, n.b.k., Berlin and The 30th Biennial of Graphic Arts, Ljubljana.
Asrin Haidari, curator at Moderna Museet and former artistic director of the Luleå Biennial.
About the Film Club
The Film Club features films and discussions on Friday evenings – at the museum or live-streamed on the web site.
The Film Club resurrected in 2018 and presents films on the boundary between art and documentary. Often, the artist or director will take part in discussions after the screenings. The 2021 spring programme is compiled in collaboration with the Royal Institute of Art and Tempo Documentary Film Festival.
Film has had a prominent position at the Museum since the start. The Moderna Museet Film Club has existed since the Museum opened in 1958, showing everything from children’s matinees to the latest experimental art films.
During the 1990’s and early 2000’s the museum presented international artists in the series Contemporary Film and Video. Other screening have often been held in connection with exhibitions at the museum or in collaboration with The Royal Academy of Art, Filmform, Cinemateket, Tempo Documentary Film Festival, Cinemafrica, Stockholm’s Feminist Film Festival, among others.
Previous programme: The Film Club
The Film Club editorial team
Lena Essling, curator, Catrin Lundqvist, curator.