Category Archives: Beyond Paradise

Lecture: The Public School: ‘Beyond Paradise’ @ Wiels

Posted on by

‘Beyond Paradise’ Talk and Film Screening with Delphine Bedel & Ayako Yoshimura.Introduction by Matthieu Laurette. Screening ‘Celebration’ By Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens (2005, 55′)

‘The […] ambivalence of tourism, which also applies to our world in general, is reality and its copy at a time when copies are increasingly more realistic and reality is increasingly penetrated by the illusion of fiction‘ (Marc Augé)

Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura will present the two-part project ‘Beyond Paradise’ -an exhibition and film programme- they curated at the Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and Maison Descartes – Institut Français des Pays-Bas in 2008. A selection of film excerpts from the project will be presented, followed by the screening of the documentary ‘Celebration’ by Racké & Muskens. Delphine Bedel will introduce her last publication ‘All that is solid melts into air, Notes on Tourism’ (Rotterdam, 2008), a collective research investigating the relation between tourism and politics of memory.

‘Beyond Paradise’ addresses the cultural and social changes that have altered our perspectives on tourism. As sociologist John Urry described in his breakthrough publication The Tourist Gaze, visual culture is central to the tourist experience. It could also be stated that the tourist industry, global mobility and media consumption and especially their abundant visual culture shape our vision of contemporary society. Tourist image production and narratives, as we know them from travel brochures, postcards, advertisements, films, are addressed in the works presented. They reflect on the construction of expectations, experiences and the social imaginary of places evoked by the ubiquitous and pervasive culture of tourism we are living in nowadays. ‘Beyond Paradise’ investigates modes of representation and visibility, starting from the mass production of images – a scheme central to the leisure industry – and the idealized imagery of places, and moves away from the familiar Tourist Gaze to construct unexpected fictional or personal narratives. The promises of these idealistic and seductive images are appropriated and eventually shifted in the works presented , to reveal other realities, and take us beyond paradise in order to question one of the greatest fictions of our times: that of tourism

The film ‘Celebration’ shows six couples in search of utopia. They are the residents of Celebration; the latest version of the American Dream, built in Florida by Walt Disney. Walt Disney always said that dreams can come true. Is Celebration a dream come true in a world gone wrong?

WIELS, Center for Contemporary Art, Brussels. Saturday 20.03.2010, 16:00

Delphine Bedel is curator, artist and writer (http://blog.delphinebedel.com), Ayako Yoshimura is artist and curator. They are both based in Amsterdam. The exhibition ‘Beyond Paradise’ included works by Bik Van der Pol, Patricia Esquivias, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Mustafa Hulusi, Arnout Killian, Matthieu Laurette, Sascha Pohle, Lisl Ponger, Erkan Özgen & Sener Özmen. The film programme presented a selection of documentary, short films and videos addressing various perspectives on tourism in diverse geographical and political contexts. It featured films by Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens, Kamal Aljafari, Olivo Barbieri, Mounir Fatmi, Kwang-Ju Son, Bik Van der Pol and Kai-Ting Lin.

Teaching & Lecture: Tourisme – Atelier Recherche et Creation

Posted on by

Mercredi 7 Janvier 2009, Conférence 14.00-17.30
Jeudi 8 janvier 2009, ARC Tourisme, 10.00- 17.00
Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Besançon

Conference
All that is solid melts into air, Notes on Tourism est une réflexion sur le travail de l’artiste et de l’auteur Delphine Bedel. Parcs d’attractions et monuments, campings et stations balnéaires, ses photographies et écrits documentent des sites touristiques dans  divers contextes. Bedel questionne la représentation visuelle des loisirs, de l’architecture, et des artefacts culturels. Ce livre explore trois destinations touristiques controversées dont l’identité, l’usage, et la signification se sont transformes radicalement au siecle dernier : une statue de Lénine monumentale, enterrée dans une forêt de Berlin, la complexe architectural nazi de Prora, et le paysage voisin des falaises de craie sur Rügen comme peint par Caspar David Friedrich. Le tourisme et les loisirs influencent notre mode de vie et reflètent les changements économiques, sociaux, et culturels de notre société. Le rôle des images est central a l’expérience du tourisme. Quel la relation entre architecture et identité ? Qui possède le passé? Quelle est l’imagination romantique de la nature par rapport au tourisme aujourd’hui? Utilisant sa recherche photographique comme point de départ, Delphine Bedel a invité des auteurs des disciplines diverses à contribuer a ce livre, proposant ainsi des perspectives historiques et critiques inattendues sur les relations entre tourisme et politique de mémoire.
(Auteurs: Delphine Bedel, Francesco Bernardelli, Rachel Esner, Bruno Latour, Marco Pasi, Olivier Rolin, Thibaut de Ruyter. Photographies: Delphine Bedel. Editeur: Episode Publishers, Rotterdam 2008)

Continue reading →

Curating: Beyond Paradise/Film Programme

Posted on by

Thursday 4 September, 19.30-23.00
Maison Descartes, Institut Français des Pays-Bas, Amsterdam
Curated by Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura

The film program BEYOND PARADISE presents a selection of documentary, short films and videos addressing various perspectives on tourism in diverse geographical and political contexts. In the framework of the exhibition Beyond Paradise at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.

Programme: read more
Continue reading →

Curating: Beyond Paradise @ SMBA, Amsterdam

Posted on by

Exhibition 20 July – 7 September 2008
Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam
Curated by Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura,
in collaboration with Jelle Bouwhuis

Bik Van der Pol, Patricia Esquivias, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Mustafa Hulusi, Arnout Killian, Matthieu Laurette, Sascha Pohle, Lisl Ponger, Erkan Özgen & Sener Özmen

“The […] ambivalence of tourism, which also applies to our world in general, is reality and its copy at a time when copies are increasingly more realistic and reality is increasingly penetrated by the illusion of fiction” (Marc Augé)

In the exhibition Beyond Paradise tourist image production and narratives, as we know them from travel brochures, postcards, advertisements, films and so on, are appropriated in the works presented. They reflect on the construction of expectations, experiences and the social imaginary of places evoked by the ubiquitous and pervasive culture of tourism we are living in nowadays.

The starting point of this exhibition also stems from the paradox that tourism still involves romantic, if not paradisiacal imagery, whereas the tourist experience is actually shattered by all kinds of forces that haunt our daily lives: commercialism, gentrification, the complex entanglement of migration and tourist destinations, war, and fear of terrorism. But it is also significant for the strength of our tourism-minded culture that even such threatening notions and experiences can be integrated in a package tour.

Beyond Paradise investigates modes of representation and visibility, starting from the mass production of images ? a scheme central to the leisure industry ? and the idealized imagery of places, and moves away from the familiar Tourist Gaze to construct unexpected fictional or personal narratives. The promises of these idealistic and seductive images are appropriated and eventually shifted in the works presented in the exhibition, to reveal other realities, and take us beyond paradise in order to question one of the greatest fictions of our times: that of tourism.

Film programme
In the framework of ‘Beyond Paradise’ a film programme will be presented in Maison Descartes in Amsterdam on Thursday, September 4, starting at 7:30 p.m. The programme, compiled by Delphine Bedel and Ayako Yoshimura, aims to present broader perspectives on some aspects of tourism activities and fictional representation, in various geographical and political contexts. The programme features work by: Kamal Aljafari, Olivo Barbieri, Bik Van der Pol, Mounir Fatmi, Kwang-Ju Son and Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens. The complete programme will be announced on the SMBA website and by Maison Descartes.

The exhibition is accompanied by the free SMBA Newsletter nr. 105 (EN/NL) with an introduction by the curators and a work by Matthieu Laurette .

SMBA
Rozenstraat 59, Amsterdam
Opening: Saturday 19 July, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.
www.smba.nl

Supported by the Institut Français des Pays-Bas and in partnership with Maison Descartes

Continue reading →