A Piano Played By Ear is a screening program exploring power structures, social systems, and the imposed divide between antithetical concepts that shape how we address reality.
The selected video works question the existing patterns in our understanding of gender, identity, history, culture, nature, class, and race – often based on binary codes and normative thinking. Through a shift in the point of view, the inversion of roles, or the unveiling of hidden dynamics, they suggest a twist of perspective that challenges the feeling of self-righteousness in the regulated social sphere.
By presenting a variety of expressions, formats, and storytelling techniques, the program invites the viewers to put the auto-pilot on hold for a moment and open up for alternative narratives.
Maria Kapajeva
Test Shooting, 2016
HD video, single screen, 16:9, stereo, subtitled, 11 min
Through a straightforward approach and plain tone, Maria Kapajeva’s Test Shooting confronts the stereotypical presentation of female attractiveness created by patriarchal objectified culture.
We see a middle-aged man who partly gets undressed while modeling at a photo shoot in an unadorned studio setting. He strikes various poses following a set of instructions given by the artist from her position behind the camera. The directions are excerpts from matrimonial websites instructing Russian women in search of a Western husband on photographing themselves for “the best match.”
The video was recorded without prior rehearsal, resulting in an unedited immediacy between the director and the actor. The spontaneity of their interaction, combined with the temporary reversal of positions, sets a question mark on the heteronormative definition of desire and intimacy and the nature of sexual identity.
Director: Maria Kapajeva
Key cast: Tim Andrews
***
Maria Kapajeva is an artist operating between Estonia and the UK. Her practice explores cultural identity and gender issues within historical and contemporary contexts. Focusing on women’s position in today’s society, she aims to question how identities are formed via the subconscious effects of advertising, popular culture and mass media through a research-led approach. The video work Test Shooting was appointed the Runner-Up Award at Fokus Video Art Festival in Denmark in 2018. The artist’s book Dream Is Wonderful, Yet Unclear, published by Milda Books, obtained the Krazsna-Krausz Photo Book Award in 2021. She exhibits internationally, and her works are in museum collections such as the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tartu Art Museum. She is currently attending a practice-based PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts and covers the Project Manager position at Fast Forward: Women in Photography.
Paola Paleari (b. 1984) is an independent Italian writer, editor, and curator based in Copenhagen. She co-curated the Contemporary Art Program 2021-2022 at Vestjyllands Kunstpavillon and has directed the exhibition platform JIR SANDEL since 2018. She writes extensively about contemporary art and between 2013 and 2018 she covered the position of Deputy Editor at YET magazine. Her main area of interest is the photographic language and its relations with contemporary visual culture and art practices. She is also interested in the intersection between critical and creative writing and often intertwines art criticism with other forms of storytelling.
