Angelica Mesiti

Angelica Mesiti’s ASSEMBLY is a three-channel video installed within an architectural setting inspired by the historical shape of the community circle and amphitheatre. ASSEMBLY establishes as an evolving set of translations from the written word to stenographic codes then music, and performance. Filmed in the Senate chambers of Italy and Australia, the three screens of ASSEMBLY travel through the corridors, meeting rooms and parliaments of government while performers, representing the multitude of ancestries that constitute cosmopolitan Australia, gather, disassemble and re-unite, demonstrating the strength and creativity of a plural community. 

Curator Juliana Engberg said, “ASSEMBLY uses and personifies the exilic energies of those who seek belonging in the community—the young, the female, Indigenous, the newly arrived and exiled, the refugee as well as the artist. Mesiti’s performers play along to an inherited code, but through translation, improvisation, adaptation, and re-interpretation demonstrate how a new music can emerge. The abstract relations and associations within ASSEMBLY open a space of imagined possibilities arising out of strange juxtapositions and unlikely re-locations.

“Cutting a rupture into the voided place of government to ignite a next succession of communication, ASSEMBLY seeks to create a new space for those who want to speak differently, hear attentively, and act together to form a new translation of the democratic process.”

Commissioned by the Australia Council for the Arts on the occasion of the 58th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery, Australia and Galerie Allen, Paris.

Curated for the Australian Pavilion by Juliana Engberg.

CREDITS

Artist Angelica Mesiti

Producer Bridget Ikin

Cinematographer Bonnie Elliott, ACS 

Composer Max Lyandvert

Michela Stenographic Advisor Paolo Michela-Zucco

Poet David Malouf

CANBERRA PRODUCTION

Sound Recordist Kimmo Vennonen

Camera Assistant Juntra Santitharangkun

Digital Imaging Technician Jamie Gray

Gaffer Russell Fewtrell

Grip David Litchfield 

Steadicam Operator Pete Barta 

Assistant Sound Recordist Aron Dyer

Costumes Alice Babidge

ROME PRODUCTION

Line Producer Massimiliano Navarra

Producer's Assistant Maichel Marchese

1st Camera Assistant Stefano Barabino

2nd Camera Assistant Mattia Gelain

Sound Recordist Riccardo Gaggioli

POST-PRODUCTION

Editor Angelica Mesiti

Music Mix Bob Scott

Sound Design and Mix Liam Egan

Colourist Billy Wychgel

Post-Production Supervisor Peter Lenaerts

MUSICIANS AND PERFORMERS

Michela Stenographer Michele Pigliapoco

Pianist Sonya Lifschitz

Viola James Wannan

Clarinet Aviva Endean

Sanṭūr Jamal Farokhsereshti

Dancer Deborah Brown 

Drummers, C'DARZ John Afram, Christopher, Dandan, Ricky Hadchiti, Albert Khouri, Rizik Khouri, Bakhos Samrani, Nadim Sleiman, Anthony Younes 

Vocalists The House that Dan Built: Elektra Blinder, Grace Campbell, Sofia Goulding, Brianna Harris, Kittu Hoyne, Kiri Jenssen, Emily Pincock, Harper Pollard, Jayden Selvakumaraswamy, Iris Simpson, Thu Tran, Sylvie Woodhouse

Vocalists’ Manager 
Danielle O’Keefe


Lancia Vendors of Rome

Exhibition Designer Simon de Dreuille

Produced by Felix Media, with the support of Screen Australia

Taking the Danish tradition of communal group singing as a starting point, Angelica Mesiti’s Mother Tongue explores the way diverse communities in and around Aarhus connect to their cultural heritage through music, dance and song.
The work was produced with the participation of a range of performers from Aarhus including school children, employee’s of Aarhus Kommune, the Ramallah Boy Scouts troupe, the Jaffra Dancers, Gellerup Circus School and residents of the housing development, Gellerupparken. From popular radio hits to traditional folk songs, Somali blues, marching drills and wedding dances, Mother Tongue explores a series of communal, creative activities shared across the urban, civic and residential spaces of one European city.
Mother Tongue uses music as a way to sketch a portrait of society as we see it today, where individuals and groups seek ways to maintain their own cultural values while integrating into a new place rather than assimilating. Musical tropes like synchronicity, harmony, dissonance and discordant associations build to generate an image of juxtaposed realities. Mesiti has created a complex new melody where traditional and newer unexpected rhythms can evolve.

Commissioned by Aarhus 2017- European Capital of Culture with additional funds from the Adelaide Biennale

Performers
Roha Ibrahim
Maria Sorensen
Shan Safir Eidnes
Aslak Mackinnon
Rami Mohamed
Simona Abdullah
Maryam Mursal
Libaan Sabrie
Artam Abdi Agaade

Staff of Aarhus Kommune
The Jaffra Dancers
Students of Rosenvanskole
Ramallah Scout drummers

 Crew
Bridget Ikin    Producer
Bonnie Elliott    Director of Photography
Merete Stubkjaer    Line producer
Kasper Rasmussen    Sound Recordist
Michael Filocamo    Data Wrangler
Rasmus Molbæk    Camera Assistant
Andreas Thorsted    Production Assistant
Angelica Mesiti    Editor
Liam Egan    Sound designer
Billy Wychgel    Colourist

Appel à tous. Ceci est notre dernier cri avant notre silence éternel.
Calling all, this is our final cry before our eternal silence.

Relay League takes as its departure point a Morse code message transmitted by the French Navy on 31 January 1997 to signal the imminent demise of this communication method. Morse code, which entailed a system of dot and dash radio signals and was often utilised as a language of distress at sea, was phased out after 130 years in favour of new digital communications. Inspired by this final poetic phrase, here Mesiti interprets its original dots and dashes through music, choreography, non-verbal communication and sculpture.

Spanning the expanse of the galleries, the videos and sculpture in Relay League were connected by a labyrinth-like structure that functioned as a membrane between the physical and psychological elements embodied within Mesiti’s work. The first video features the musician-composer Uriel Barthélémi translating the Morse code message into a percussive score that permeates throughout the entire installation. The second shows  a unique form of dialogue and exchange between two dancers, Emilia Wibron Vesterlund and Sindri Runudde, who is affected by impaired vision. Together the pair have developed an intimate and corporeal language that communicates movement and gesture; Emilia guides Sindri’s understanding of choreography through the touch and feel of her body against his. The third depicts the dancer Filipe Lourenço interpreting Uriel’s percussive sounds in a new choreography that directly references silence and vision through gestures loosely drawn from the vernacular of folk dance. This final video reveals that a dialogue is playing out between each of the performers, and the dots and dashes transmitted throughout the galleries produce a subtle dissonance so that the work continually slips back and forth between cohesion and dissolution. Relay League leaves a sensory impression of a language that has been transformed into a code, which in turn iterates as a score, a performance, a haptic exchange and an instrument, enabling multiple acts of translation across time and space.

Edited from the curatorial statement written by Michelle Newton

Commissioned by Artspace, Sydney
Drummer: Uriel Barthélémi
Dancers: Sindri Runudde, Emilia Wibron Vesterlund, Filipe Lourenço

Producer: Anne Becker/ PLATÔ
Cinematographer: Pierre Jouvion
B Camera operators: Antoine Laurens, Jules Boudon-Chambre
Sound recordists: Marc Parazon, Jonathan Pons
Grip: Benjamin Masset, Benoît Morvan, Mathieu Andrieux
Location: CN D Centre national de la danse Paris
Sound designer and mixer: Liam Egan
Colourist: Billy Wychgel

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
The development and presentation of Relay League is supported by Commissioning Partner the Keir Foundation.
Relay League was produced with the support of C ND Centre National de la Danse, Paris and University of New South Wales Art & Design
Relay League is touring Australia in partnership with Museums & Galleries of NSW

Installation view: Anna Schwartz gallery Melbourne.
Photo: Zan Wembly

The single-channel video Tossed by Waves, 2017 is marked by silence and languorous travelling movements. The camera captures an ambiguous procession of sculptural bodies, entangled and clamped onto a stone trunk. The monument is never quite revealed, yet clues, such as graffiti bearing the names of loved ones and messages of hope, suggest the present time.

This is Mesiti’s meditation on turbulence and resilience from the perspective of her adopted city of Paris, whose motto: fluctuat nec mergitur translates as “tossed by the waves but does not sink.” In use since the mid-1300s, the phrase has gained a resurgence of popularity with the November Paris attacks in 2015. Over the past two years, Mesiti has engaged with the Place de la République as a place of memory, protest, and perhaps foremost as a contemporary agora; the symbolic heart of a city standing for its democratic values.

In 'The Colour of Saying', the signing choir performs “Serenade to Music” in silence ‘singing’ in sign language instead of with their voices. The choral work is performed using only hand gestures and body movements to express the lyrics and tone of the music.
The silence is broken by the simplest method; two hands clapping. Two young men enter and perform simple percussive rhythms ,clapping in syncopation. 
Seated on stairs two retired ballet dancers ‘dance’ a pas de deux from the ballet Swan Lake using only their hands to express the steps of the choreography. They dance in silence, listening to Tchaikovsky’s score through headphones.

Participants: 
Dancers: Rolf Hepp, Jette Nejman,
Percussionists: Viktor Feuk, Tomas Erlandsson,
The Sign language choir from Önnestad folk high school, conducted by Ingegerd Nyborg

Crew Sweden:
Cinematogratpher: Edvard Friis-Moeller
Camera assistant/ stills photography: Lars Beyer
Sound recordist: Jakob Riis

Editor - Angelica Mesiti
Editing facilities courtesy of Felix Media
Post Production - David Gross, Definition Films
Sound Designer & Mix - Liam Egan
Colourist -   Billy Wychgel

The performance was originated in collaboration with and produced by Lilith Performance Studio, Malmö, Sweden 2015. 
Presented at Anna Schwartz Gallery Sydney 2015.
Kindly supported by Felix Media

photo: Pierre Jouvion 

In Nakh Removed, Paris-based artist Angelica Mesiti explores how dance is used to enter altered states within traditional cultural and spiritual practice. The film is based on the ritualistic practice of the Nakh or 'hair dance', a Berber dance from the Algerian/Tunisian border. The Nakh is traditionally performed at weddings and during a period devoted to fertility. It features the swaying of the dancer's head and thrashing of the hair. The simple movements, when performed repetitively, induce an altered state of consciousness.

Mesiti's work features four contemporary Parisienne women with Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian heritage, of different ages, performing the dance. Shot in slow motion, the video focuses on the repetitious movement of the dancer's hair, creating a hypnotic experience for the viewer, which mirrors the dancers' trance-like state.

Advisor / choreographer

Saâdia Souyah

Dancers

Saâdia Souyah 

Mariem Guellouz 

Akila Boutaleb 

Karima Aouraghe

Crew

Producer: Anne Becker 

Cinematograhper: Pierre Jouvion 

Camera assistant: Benjamin Masset 

Sound recordist: Marc Parazon 

Editing: Angelica Mesiti

Colourist: Jean-Marie Belloteau

Commissioned by Carriageworks for the project 24 Frames Per Second 2015

Acknowledgements:

Arab Centre for Dance and Contemporary Writing Paris, Felix Media

Photo: Mark Ashkanasy

Photo: Mark Ashkanasy

Photo: Mark Ashkanasy

Photo: Mark Ashkanasy

Photo: Mark Ashkanasy

 

For The Calling, Angelica Mesiti travelled to the village of Kuskoy in Northern Turkey, the island of La Gomera in The Canary Islands and the Island of Evia in Greece where whistling languages are still in use. For these communities, whistling languages are in a process of transformation from their traditional use as tools for communication across vast lands into tourist attractions and cultural artefacts and are being taught to local school children. The Calling is a poignant exploration of ancient human traditions evolving and adapting to the modern world. Mesiti’s work speaks to the tenacity and creativity of traditional cultures in the face of technical progress and environmental flux.

Crew
Cinematographer -  Bonnie Elliott
Sound Recordist  - Aron Dyer
Editor - Angelica Mesiti
Post Production - David Gross, Definition Films
Sound Designer & Mix - Liam Egan
Colourist -   Billy Wychgel

Producers
Bridget Ikin
Jodie Passmore

Kuskoy, Turkey
Translator - Fatih Bağcı
Community Liaison - Şeref Köçek

Antia, Greece
Translator - Nikos Lagonikos
Community Liaison - Panagiotis Tzanavaris

La Gomera, Canary Islands
Translator - Mechthild Schildhorn
Community Liaison - Francisco Correa

Commissioned by the Ian Potter Moving Image Commission, presented by ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image)

Courtesy of the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery

Produced by Felix Media

Photograph: Sebastian Kriete

Photograph: Sebastian Kriete

Commissioned for the 19th Biennale of Sydney: You Imagine What You Desire,  In the Ear of the Tyrant (2013–14), is inspired by songs of lamentation from southern Italy and women known as Prefiche, who were traditionally employed to sing songs of mourning on behalf of a community after the death of one of its members.

Drawing on her own southern Italian heritage, and in collaboration with Italian vocalist Enza Pagliara, Mesiti re-imagines the grieving ritual, depicting a vocal performance on location at the Ear of Dionysius, an ancient limestone cave carved out of the Temenites Hill in the Sicilian city of Syracuse. According to legend, the tyrant Dionysius the Elder once used the cave to incarcerate political captives. Due to the flawless acoustics – the cave is famed for its extraordinary aural properties – Dionysius was able to eavesdrop on his prisoners’ covert plans.

Sung in its language of origin, this ancient funeral lament connects to another layer of the history of the cave, which was quarried when Syracuse was a Greek territory. In the Ear of the Tyrant honours a musical and cultural tradition on the edge of extinction; Enza Pagliara’s evocative singing is not only an expression of the ritualisation of corporeal death, but also a lament for the death of the tradition itself.

Vocalist
Enza Pagliara

Crew
Cinematographer -  Bonnie Elliott
Camera Assistant - Pietro Cusimano
Sound Recordist  - Aron Dyer
Production manager: Marco De Rossi, Sicily Movie Service
Editor - Angelica Mesiti
Post Production - David Gross, Definition Films
Sound Designer & Mix - Liam Egan
Colourist -   Billy Wychgel

Producers 
Bridget Ikin
Jodie Passmore

Produced in Association with:
Region of Sicily Department of Culture and Sicilian Identity.
The Archeological Park of Syracuse, Sicily.

Funded by:
The Australia Council for the Arts and Craft, commissioned by the 19th Biennale of Sydney

Courtesy the artist and Anna Schwartz Gallery,
Melbourne and Sydney

Produced by Felix Media, Sydney

Mesiti’s ‘band’ is made up of four individual films, which document the performances of musicians who work outside official structures of presentation.  Cameroon, Geraldine Zongo drums the water in a Parisian public pool. Algerian, Mohammed Lamourie sings and plays his Casio keyboard in the Paris Metro system.  Sudanese, Asim Goreshi whistles in his Brisbane taxi cab.  And Mongolian, Bukhchuluun Ganburged (Bukhu) plays the Mongolian morin khuur (horse head fiddle) and throat sings on a Newtown corner.   Each player delivers a distinct sound with a particularity of technique that is inflected with its cultural origin.

Arranged as a video ensemble of four screens facing inwards, Mesiti syncopates all performances and compresses the audiences’ concentration.  We witness each performer individually, before a cacophony is produced by playing the four soundtracks together.   

Performers:
Loïs Géraldine Zongo
Mohammed Lamourie
Bukhchuluun (Bukhu) Ganburged
Asim Gorashi

Crew - Paris
Cinematographer: Bonnie Elliott
Sound Recordists: Alessandro Angius, Gerald Ladoul, Maciek Hamela
Production manager: Martine Caron

Crew - Sydney
Cinematographer: Bonnie Elliott
Camera assistant: Elena Sarno
Sound Recordist: Richard Boxhall 

Executive producer: Bridget Ikin
Producer: Jodie Passmore

Editor: Angelica Mesiti
Composer for ‘Cacophony’: Stefan Gregory
Sound Mix : Liam Egan
Colourist: Trish Cahill

Post production services: Definition Films Sydney
Technical consultant: Cake Industries Melbourne

Funding:
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

Angelica Mesiti was awarded a Creative Fellowship from the Australian Film Television and Radio School to support this project.

Commissioned for NEW12; Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne.

Produced by Felix Media

The video projection Prepared Piano for Movers (Haussmann) (2012) shows two movers, loaded down with a piano, making their way up a spiral staircase in a Parisian apartment building. Quite unexpectedly, the two men are making avant-garde music, since the instrument has been “prepared” in the manner of composer John Cage, with objects hammering the strings so that the movements of the piano, as it is slowly lifted, produce dissonant and percussive sounds. Projected vertically, the video emphasizes the piano’s perilous climb, while its improvised, unpredictable music is analogous to the laborious efforts of the men as they proceed. Mesiti’s work highlights the grace and invention of everyday working life.

‘Some dance to remember, some dance to forget’ takes its title from the Eagles song Hotel California 1977. Mohammed is a partially blind, Algerian street musician in Paris. Set in a nightclub in Paris, the video captures Mohammed singing an Arabic version of the song, made famous by the Algerian pop singer Cheb Hasni who was assassinated by Muslim extremists in the 1990s for his outspoken lyrics about romantic love and other taboo subjects like alcohol and divorce. The genre of music is Rai, Algerian folk music, and the songs range from being political in nature to ballads. The original song describes a luxury hotel at night in which the performer is confined both physically and metaphorically by his excesses. The nightclub lights surround Mohammed. Overlapping circles of blue, pink, red and white arranged in long lines they are both mesmerizing and nostalgic, locating the singer in a nether zone. Like a disco from the 1970s (the decade that the original song was composed) this nightclub is the context against which Mohammed performs cultural and linguistic remembrance.

Performer: Mohammed Lamourie
Cinematographer: Bonnie Elliott

Cinematography: Bonnie Elliot
Photography: Jamie North

Commissioned by C3West for the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney and the Hurstville City Council

Cinematography: Bonnie Elliot
Photography: Mathew McWilliams
Commissioned by Campbelltown Arts Centre

Cinematography: Evan Papageorgiou
Sound Recordist: Steve McDonald

Commissioned by the Performance Space for Nightshifters at the Carriageworks Sydney

Videography: Evan Papageorgiou