The Hidden Conference is a three-part series of filmic investigations in museum storages. All three films evoke the discussions one can imagine artworks in a museum’s storage spaces might have with one another. They become protagonists in a filmic narrative that unfolds before a handheld camera; their invisible nexuses and the condition of silent coexistence are enlivened besides scientific or chronological claims by the restless camerawork and the montage of textual fragments, filmic pictures and sound elements. The soundscape is an equal partner in supporting the fictionalization.
The Hidden Conference: A Fractured Play (2011) was shot in the archives of the Capitoline Museums in Rome where the works are stored and situated in a high-rise building overlooking Rome.
The Hidden Conference: A Fractured Play, 2011
35mm film, color, optical sound, 5 min
Images 1, 2, 3: Film still © Rosa Barba
Image 4: Installation view at Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2012 © Rosa Barba
The Hidden Conference: A Fractured Play has been on display at the following locations:
The Tanks at Tate Modern, London, 2023
Tate Modern, London, 2020
ARTER, Istanbul, 2019
The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, 2016
Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, 2016
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 2013
Filmforum, Gorizia, 2013
Gene Siskel Center, Chicago, 2013, Arter, Istanbul, 2012
Sprengel Museum Hannover, 2012, Jeu de Paume, 2012
MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, 2011 carlier | gebauer, 2011
Galleria Civia, Trento, 2011