ARTIST

Agnes Varda

Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse, 2000

to glean:

  1. to gather leftover crops, following the harvest
  2. to gather anything slowly and laboriously

In this reflective documentary/essay, we follow Varda, as she performs a final re-invention of herself at the turn of the 21st century. Her identity as a filmmaker is in tune with her identity as a woman, she shares her stories with care and depth. The glue, holding everything together, is intimacy, the meaningfulness of everyday life, the oldest and truest form of familiarity and her desire to share and be shared.

The Gleaners and I is a (the) meeting place (mostly in the first person) of people from various French towns and villages. Some of them are living on the edge of poverty; while others were born into privilege. Among them, are a woman who has spent her entire life in the farmhouse she was born in, a chef boasting two Michelin stars, the psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche, the great-grandson of physiologist and chrono-photographer Etienne-Jules Marey, a woman working at a bar, a family that has brought an old vineyard back to life, the artist Louis Pons, who makes ‘art’ through reinventing everyday objects that are no longer considered useful and Alain, who has a degree in Biology and teaches French to migrants.

What do all their life stories have in common? Gleaning. The (re)gathering of what others have left behind, making use of every single available grain, the point where one person’s trash transforms into another person’s treasure. Varda’s film tells the story of gleaning as a process of collecting fruits, ideas, actions, experiences. 

As the film progresses Varda develops concentric circles, narratives that make sense of an act that has been practised in different forms over centuries. Some people are connected to gleaning due to family tradition, some turn to gleaning simply in order to survive, others to make a political statement. Sometimes it’s a matter of agency at other times, a lack of.

In her story-telling that entangles and intertwines space and time, the countryside and the city, Varda converses with three works of art related to gleaning: the first is a painting by Millet which depicts three women in the field, gleaning stalks of wheat, their backs turned to both the artist and the viewer. Millet moves the gleaners―the poor, coming from the lowest rung of society, who are, therefore, allowed to collect the leftovers from the harvest―to the center, the place previously occupied by the privileged. The conversation, which is not just artistic, but also political, continues with the figure, created by Breton, in which a female-gleaner looks straight at the painter and the viewers, holding on tight to the straws she has collected―a figure with which Varda herself identifies; and ends with Hédouin’s Gleaners Fleeing the Storm which she chooses to present as the work’s moral core. For Varda, a return to self-sufficiency, moderation, and ingenuity can be life-saving before the storm. Varda announces, early on, that, in the past, gleaners were exclusively women. If one were to draw a parallel between the evolution of cinema and the evolution of gleaning, one realises that, at a certain point, men started to glean, while more and more women started making movies. For Varda, the art of cinema is also the art of gleaning.  

Varda doesn’t simply document this gleaning. She becomes part of it, in fact she already is part of it. Gleaning does not function only as a place, but also as a raw material. It is both there and through it, that her filmmaking is created. With symbols lost and found in the most unlikely places. By talking about gleaning, she is also talking about her own life and art. She foregoes high-end film equipment, and picks up a simple, handheld camera instead. Which is nothing more and nothing less than a medium, she makes the most of, to tell her stories.

Holding the camera in one hand, she films her other hand. She is the recording subject, but also positions herself as the filmed object, including herself thus in this intimate portrait study of her time.

ARTIST'S VENUES

MAIN EXHIBITION

BEING AS COMMUNION

The central exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art aims to think critically about co-existence and collaborative practices as creative tools for handling the multiple crises that we face. Thinking through being as communion, 28 artists via their respective practices touch on various forms of more than human collaborations, with our spectral past and our challenging present, thinking of how we can co-exist with animate life around us, the land that we stand on, the food that we eat and the air that we breathe. Being as Communion will focus on inclusive practices that explore different forms of care, love and mutuality, whilst also proposing generous forms of support systems. Invited artists and artist collectives will explore the human impact on the eco-systems that we share, whilst suggesting forms of more equitable existence, for humanimal survival, probing to what extent we can learn new ways of being with, rather than dominating the world around us.

Ten key sites and museums of the city of Thessaloniki will host the exhibition’s works, in dialogue with the city’s layered history, allowing for a polyphonic reading of the exhibition in ten equal parts.

04.03 –
21.05.2023

MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Museum of Byzantine Culture, National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Hamidie – Islahane Cultural Venue, Eptapyrgio, Yeni Jami, Thessaloniki French Institute, Glass Box “Scultures’ Garden” (seefront area), Thessaloniki Concert Hall (building M2)

The central exhibition of the 8th Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art aims to think critically about co-existence and collaborative practices as creative tools for handling the multiple crises that we face. Thinking through being as communion, 28 artists via their respective practices touch on various forms of more than human collaborations, with our spectral past and our challenging present, thinking of how we can co-exist with animate life around us, the land that we stand on, the food that we eat and the air that we breathe. Being as Communion will focus on inclusive practices that explore different forms of care, love and mutuality, whilst also proposing generous forms of support systems. Invited artists and artist collectives will explore the human impact on the eco-systems that we share, whilst suggesting forms of more equitable existence, for humanimal survival, probing to what extent we can learn new ways of being with, rather than dominating the world around us.

Ten key sites and museums of the city of Thessaloniki will host the exhibition’s works, in dialogue with the city’s layered history, allowing for a polyphonic reading of the exhibition in ten equal parts.

04.03 –
21.05.2023

MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Museum of Byzantine Culture, National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Hamidie – Islahane Cultural Venue, Eptapyrgio, Yeni Jami, Thessaloniki French Institute, Glass Box “Scultures’ Garden” (seefront area), Thessaloniki Concert Hall (building M2)

EXHIBITIONS

PROJECTS

09.02 –
30.04.2023

An exhibition collectively put together by curators of MOMus

21.12.2022 –
21.05.2023

ΜΟΜus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection

09.02 –
30.04.2023

An exhibition collectively put together by curators of MOMus

09.02 –
30.04.2023

An exhibition collectively put together by curators of MOMus

21.12.2022 –
21.05.2023

ΜΟΜus-Museum of Modern Art-Costakis Collection

BIENNALE 8

GEOCULTURA

The exchange of ideas, values and norms, within a context of a multitude of cultural, geographical and political debates and conflicts, is at the core of the concept of 'geoculture' in the political and social sciences. This is the rationale behind the decision of the 8th edition of Thessaloniki's Biennale of Contemporary Art to turn its attention to the terms 'land' (“geo-”) and 'culture', connecting the cultivation of land with culture, understood as a set of resources, texts and practices which are available to people, helping them better understand and more effectively act in the world. It explores issues of memory, history, and managing both the natural and man-made environment, under the conditions of the climate, economic and refugee crises.

The participating artists focus on histories of places and people; they touch upon issues of identity, ethics, equity and sustainability; they suggest improvised ecological technologies; they explore the potential for collective existence and question the systems by which production, consumption and profitability are organized; they put into practice ideas of resource sharing and equitable living, as well as ways of reassessing the commodification of human and non-human life. Through their works, imagination becomes a crucial factor in facilitating the audience to imagine different versions of the future.

Firmly believing that art broadens our understanding of the world, the 8th Biennale seeks not only to raise environmental awareness, but also to multiply future possibilities, with new claims and visions. The 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art aspires to serve as a means of communication with the world, as an act of justice and freedom, of trust and progressive thinking.

The Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) is organised by MOMus and implemented by MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections.

The participating artists focus on histories of places and people; they touch upon issues of identity, ethics, equity and sustainability; they suggest improvised ecological technologies; they explore the potential for collective existence and question the systems by which production, consumption and profitability are organized; they put into practice ideas of resource sharing and equitable living, as well as ways of reassessing the commodification of human and non-human life. Through their works, imagination becomes a crucial factor in facilitating the audience to imagine different versions of the future.

Firmly believing that art broadens our understanding of the world, the 8th Biennale seeks not only to raise environmental awareness, but also to multiply future possibilities, with new claims and visions. The 8th Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art aspires to serve as a means of communication with the world, as an act of justice and freedom, of trust and progressive thinking.

The Thessaloniki Biennale of Contemporary Art is financed by Greece and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund) is organised by MOMus and implemented by MOMus-Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections.