Adrian Paci, 'Vies en Transit', Jeu de Paume

Today was my day off so I had the chance to go into Paris and visit the Jeu de Paume Gallery which is currently hosting two exhibitions: contemporary artist Adrian Paci's 'Vies en Transit' and Laure Albin Guillot 'L'enjeu Classique'.Adrian's work really fascinated me, particularly the video work 'Vajtojca' (The Weeping), which shows a middle aged woman in a head scarf performing a ceremonial ritual for the death of her only son.Below are some stills that I was able to capture:

“The fact of being at a crossroads, at the frontier of two separate identities, underlies all my work on film.”(Adrian Paci)

"In 1997, Adrian Paci escaped violent riots in Albania to take refuge, with his family, in Italy. On his arrival in the country, he temporarily abandoned painting and sculpture in favour of video, thus exploring new cinematic languages and means of expression. His experience of exile, the shock of separation and adaptation to a new place define the context of his first videos, through which he attempts to discover the roots of his past."

To watch Paci's full video of 'Vajtojca', see here: http://vimeo.com/54599219

"Centro di Permanenza Temporanea, named after an Italian refugee camp, takes viewers to a runway in California where a group of people (many of them Mexican) are seen mounting an aircraft stairway. The camera pans out, however, to reveal that there is no plane and that these passengers are stranded, queued up in stunted ascension. Paci focuses on their passive faces: a woman squinting against the sun; a man’s hair blowing in the wind. Meanwhile, other planes are seen in the background, though the travelers’ flight never arrives. Paci’s work reflects his own unsettled history as a displaced person—a situation far from rare in our ever-globalizing world." - TimeOut, Nov 27th 2007.