Cinema Parenthèse in collaboration with Wiels presents Land/Scapes, a series in three programs with films by Claes Söderquist, Els van Riel, Rose Lowder and Werner Nekes, that explore the encounter between film and the expanse of landscape. This comprises the investigation of historical and dimensional aspects of space, and a reflection on the medium of film. The ‘here’ of the camera stares at the ‘there’ of the landscape, two alien opposing forces that embody numerous dichotomies; nature versus culture, the natural versus the artificial, organic versus machinic etcetera.
Claes Söderquist (°1939) is a prominent figure of Swedish experimental film whose visually appealing and personal films revolve around slow cinematic reflections on architecture, landscape, strata, time and space. Influenced by Land-Art, minimalist music (like Charlemagne Palestine) and structural film processes, Söderquist’s dystopian and desolate scenery is at times reminiscent of the films by Michael Snow and Larry Gottheim. As a film curator, Söderquist has made several comprehensive exhibitions at Moderna Museet in Stockholm: “‘The Pleasure Dome’, American Experimental Film 1939-1979” (1980, in collaboration with Jonas Mekas), “Nordic Film” (1983), “West German Experimental Film” (1985, in collaboration with Birgit Hein) and “Swedish Avantgarde Film 1924-1990” (1991, touring program in US, in collaboration with Jonas Mekas and Anthology Film Archives, New York).
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