Dreamtime
Xavi HurtadoJuly 14, 2010 – August 14, 2010
Opening: July 14, 2010 from 19:00 to 21:00
“...Long time ago, before writing, before the foxilization and fragmentation of memory, the dream was something similar to what today is the “media”. A space of cultural construction, creation of identity and moreover a space of holy connection to nature. The ancestral practices with dream in present times for Yaguas, Huitotos, Andokes, Cofanes, Inganos, Boras, Mirañas and a long etcetera in the Colombian Amazonia are a little bridge that connects with pre-history, with the principle of historic narrative. It is a relax, a travel within a very long and dense time…” Xavi Hurtado
From September to December 2009, Xavi Hurtado gave a series of video workshops in the Cauca Valley, Colombia, in Tierra Adentro and in the northern zone of the country. At the same time he did field work which involved a series of interviews and recordings, both visual and aural, from the surrounding landscape. The aim of the project is to explore the existence of a possible political imaginarium specific to the indigenous Nasa before the arrival of the ethno-centric leftwing ideologies of the 70’s— to see how they had merged different imaginaries of resistance not only in the 70’s but from the time of the Spanish Conquest; to see how they could continue to evolve influenced by the new technologies for the image in the times of radio, video and the Internet.
The artist observes the interaction of oniric and visionary practices of the Walas (the Nasas shamans) with their current political resistance.
Dremtime is part of an on-going study on dream as a form of writing; as a relation of the reality with the image and of the image with reality (understanding this as a form that creates past, present and future) concepts that identifies and build political space, the media of every community, the imagery. Hurtado believes in the power and heritage of different imageries and in the necessity of a treatment for the western one, possibly using the images themselves (homeopathic treatment) looking for the bases and a different practice with it. He normally teaches video and new media at the University of Barcelona (Spain), and in Bogotá (Colombia). Since 2001 he has been involved in different projects related to the oniric practices of indigenous people, other imaginaries (imaginariums), and experimental video in different cultural contexts.
Xavi Hurtado from 1996 until 2010 has been spending more time in Colombia than in his native Spain. Since 2007 he has been involved in the creation of Archivo Porvenir, a cinema archive that collects colonialist propaganda material made by the US and UK, in Spanish, for south american territories, between the 40s - 70s. He is a founder and researcher of OVNI (Observatory of Non-Identified Videos)
Dream Time has the generous support of Embajada de España en Berlin and Precidencia Española de la UE.