After Architects: A film programme by Kunsthalle Basel for „Freezone“, SAM, Basel

After Architects is a film program conceived by Maja Naef, curator of Detail(s) series at the Kunsthalle Basel, and Adam Szymczyk, director of the Kunsthalle, in response to the project „Freezone“, which inaugurates activities of the Swiss Architecture Museum under the new directorship of Francesca Ferguson.

After Architects includes several films made by international contemporary artists, dealing with social consequences of urban planning and architecture design. The program addresses the question of artists’ and architects’ ethical and political responsibility in view of the current and globally pertinent issue of the rapid urban transformation which coincides with the rise of conservative attitudes in politics and happens at the cost of ongoing deterioration of living and working conditions of the underprivileged.
Rather than serving as a mere visual backdrop or an anachronistic historical prop, the architecture in the films embodies the actual (real) distribution of power in contemporary society.

The filmprogramme is projected Saturday, 27th of January and Saturday, 24th of February, at 7 pm at the Architekturmuseum.

Programme I
Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber, Democracy Paradox, 2004, 1’50
Mona Vatamanu / Florin Tudor, Procesul (The Trial), 2004/2005, 38’
Solmaz Shahbazi / Tirdad Zolghadr, Tehran 1380, 2002, 45’
Sabine Bitter / Helmut Weber, Living Megastructures, 2003/2004, 25’

Programme II
Artur Zmijewski, Sen Warszawy (The Dream of Warsaw), 2005, ca. 15’
Ljiljana Blagojevic, Vision Denied: New Belgrade, Statement, 2003, 2’50
Heidrun Holzfeind, Corviale, il serpentone (The Snake), 2001, 34’
Clemens von Wedemeyer, Silberhöhe, 2003, film 35mm on DVD, 10’ stereo