To the Wind
Curator: Carles Ángel Saurí
I was around eighteen at the time and desperately longed to stand alongside those who wanted to transform the society in which we found ourselves. And so, with all the naivety of youth, but also with all its passion, I wrote a song, which was in a way the reason why I am still singing. I don’t think there is any need to translate the title of the song. He begins to strum the strings and project his voice into the mic. Raimon sings Al vent at the Sports Pavilion in Madrid on 5 February 1976.
To the Wind is a cinematographic essay directed by Mar Reykjavik, comprising three variations. The work registers a day’s recording at the RMV Studios in Stockholm, the same studios where ABBA recorded their final album. During the session, two amateur performers rehearse and translate Al vent, the song written by Raimon in 1964 and censored under Franco’s regime, into English. The film blends the essay with conversations, materials and cutaway shots with which the artist (de)codes her autobiographical repertoire.
Mar Reykjavik takes translation as a field of research aimed at questioning objective and rigid systems of logic and categories. The project invites reflection on the dynamics of the minorisation and invisibilisation of the linguistic and identity-based domination at work within her various personal contexts: artistic, Valencian and queer. Singing Al vent in English is a critical action examining censorship, inquiring into the spaces and voices of resistance today and asking in what language are they articulated.
Like previous projects, the working method entails putting together a situation in which the performers start out from a series of materials and exercises and then interact with them in an unscripted, improvised manner. This methodology enables the performers to bring into play their own personal capabilities and singularities. The intention behind this ethical approach is to break away from the conventional methods of the filmmaking industry which generally works with closed scripts, rigid hierarchies and a top-down auteur vision.
This particular filmmaking praxis creates a shared intimate space in which vulnerability is welcomed rather than brushed over, and where the actual filming itself is a practice that affirms difference. Instead of producing a homogeneous, closed narrative, the film is conceived as a surface of appearance in which the performers’ voices, gestures and presences can be inscribed without conforming to the logic of the spectacle or the expectations of normative representation.
Carles Ángel Saurí
