PARS PRO TOTO
Online Screenings by peer to space
Pars Pro Toto is peer to space’s online series showcasing video art works which focus on very personal stories narrated by the artist or by the protagonist. The works are embedded in a thematic context of cultural, social, political, or environmental issues. A new iteration focusing on a further topic will be released quarterly. Pars Pro Toto creates a digital space for users to be silent observers and to simultaneously witness the social complexity of the world. By discovering artworks based on individual experiences yet presented in a broader context, the series demonstrates how the personal symbolizes a part of the whole, a pars pro toto. The personal story seen as an extract of an overall reality becomes visible and fits into the mosaic of the collective experience. Exploring larger issues through the individual lens activates awareness within the viewers. This leads to a deeper and more empathetic understanding of today’s global social conditions. The series promotes the importance of freedom of expression and the necessity of providing a voice for everyone as a basis for a caring and participatory society.
The Personal is Political
(May 1 until June 30, 2020)
Works by Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, Lizza May David & Claudia Liebelt, JR and Ora Ruven
Curated by Gloria Aino Grzywatz and Tina Sauerlaender
The first iteration of Pars Pro Toto deals with the political and social conditions impacting individual lives. The stories told by artists Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo, Lizza May David & Claudia Liebelt, JR and Ora Ruven consider the influence of the power of the state authorities, of war, exclusion, of discrimination of minorities. They reveal arbitrary political decisions and who is seen and who is not. Their stories take place in different places at different times, yet they show how the reciprocity of personal conditions and an individuals’ values inherited through the system in which they were born affect their path in life. The rallying cry “The Personal Is Political” echoes in their works as well as the overall motto of the screening series, Pars Pro Toto. It was used as a slogan during the student movement and second wave feminism in the 1960s, which is why this screening especially highlights stories of women.
Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo (US/DE), Protest and Desire, video, 19:55 min, 2019
Protest and Desire by Christa Joo Hyun D’Angelo focuses on a 2 year portrait of Lillian, a 49-year-old woman from Uganda living in Germany. From a personal point of view, Lilian shares her experiences of how women of color deal with intimacy, sex and age as they relate to sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) within the landscape of white Europe. Lillian speaks about the discrimination of minorities — of Africans, of women, of women with AIDS — and their exclusion from society. There is a stigma and racialization of HIV where prejudice and guilt are imposed upon those affected. The film unveils inherent biases bound to women of color and their struggle to attain acceptance both within and outside their own communities.
Lizza May David (PH/DE) & Claudia Liebelt (DE), Cycles of Care, Philippines, video, 52 min, 2011
Lizza May David’s & Claudia Liebelt’s video work Cycles of Care deals with crossing borders not only in a geographical sense. The film documents the lives of five women who have returned after many years to Manila after migrating to Israel, where they have worked in stranger’s families as care workers. They are five voices out of thousands of Filipinos who leave their country every day to work abroad to support their families. More than half of them are women. In the hope of a better life, they often confront difficult work and living conditions within a highly gendered global economy. Back in their home country, most of them struggle to make a living and to reintegrate into families they left many years ago.
lizzamaydavid.com / Claudia Liebelt
JR (FR/US), Women Are Heroes, Brazil, video, 9:39 min, 2010
Seen through the eyes of Rosiete Marinho, the film describes the daily life of women in the favela Moro de Providencia in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This place separates its inhabitants from the rest of the city and society with an invisible wall. Women Are Heroes does not engage in the reproduction of typical media images of violence and drug wars in favelas but emphasizes individual living conditions. The film is a documentation of JR's series portraying women in conflict zones. He puts up huge posters on the walls of the favela that show portraits of its female residents. Through the process of development of the month-long project, the women of Moro de Providencia become visible not only on the walls of their buildings. Further it also raised the attention of Rio de Janeiro’s mayor, who finally started to support their community.
The documentary is accompanied by a video of the artist explaining the project from his perspective. The video can be found here.
Ora Ruven (ISR), Home Of, digital video, 8:28 min, 2020
Ora Ruven's work Home Of is based on the artists’ family history and childhood experiences, intersected by the contrariness nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Told from the personal perspective of the artist, the story begins with her father’s abscondence to Israel after the Second World War, exposing the relentless arbitrariness of political systems. As a consequence of displacement, they moved in to empty houses of expelled Arab families when Ora was a child. Later, the young family were forced to share their home with another family they did not know before. Home Of shows that questions of justice and identity have many answers and perspectives to consider. Can we call a home our own if it doesn't actually belong to us?
This animation is made of time-lapse paintings (Procreate), Tilt Brush 3D paintings, and AI music (Aiva).
Ora Ruven’s film Home Of premieres here at Pars Pro Toto.
Previous PARS PRO TOTO iterations:
The Personal is Political (2020)
Home Is Where Heart Is (2020)
Mirror, Mirror (2020)
Hou Lang Tui Qian Lang (后浪推前浪) (2021)
Another Person In You (2021)
Giving Contours To Shadows (2021)
Dreams Of Solidarity (2021)
Desire is Something Boundless (2022)
My Body, My Choice? (2022)