Hondartza Fraga

The last few days the city seems quieter than usual. And it is strange, because it is not only this city. The sounds seem a little muffled, but they are still there. There seems to be less people, as if there was a big event I haven’t heard of and everyone is attending but me. And I walked into town, into this small white room. And through the open window there is noise of traffic. But I have no perspective on the city. I don’t know if quieter is the right word. The city felt awkwardly dormant. There seemed to be a different silence in the street, maybe it is just in contrast with the silence of my flat. The difference between my silence and the city’s. Almost like the silence before the storm, only that this silence does not precede anything, it is sustained, on hold, constant. It announces or predicts nothing and neither it is a consequence. It is not even a proper silence.

* * *
I am looking back through lot of footage, and looking back was led to look even further back. I found texts I wrote five years ago. Notes of no much importance or value. About nostalgia and memory. About blankness. I like some ideas or sentences (expectations on the past or to create a light bulb that will produce the light of a specific detailed moment from your/my past) but mainly they are just cheesy divagations about not being able to reminiscence.

* * *
I have traced a big doily/map. It is approximately 2 by 2 meters. Now that is done I don’t know what it means. I can’t find some family photos I wanted to work with and I am not happy about it. I will be upset if I’ve lost them. On my way down here I came up with a few good ideas for the dialogue I am writing, but I can’t remember them now either… I think it is time for lunchbreak.

* * *

I need to not look back too far. Some too old material is only disruptive. The footage is more what I am interested on. The words will come, I am sure. I realise that my footage is turning into some sort of archive of fragments. But I am not sure if I am the best person to catalogue it, if all I can do is just keep accumulating because any attempt to classify or order will simply stop me from moving forward. Whatever or wherever forward is.

* * *
A quote and a video…

“The marvel of a house is not that it shelters or warms a man, nor that its walls belong to him. It is that it leaves its trace on the language. Let it remain a sign. Let it form, deep in the heart, that obscure range from which, as waters from a spring, are born our dreams.”
From Wind, Sand and Stars, Saint-Exupery

One of my main goals for this residency is to look back and reflect about material accumulated. And another is to write. To write for a new video piece but also to simply write more, not about my work but more generally about ideas. It is difficult to face the blank page, so with the writing I am also looking back, at my own texts and others that inspire me. I have come across a translation I did some months ago of some texts by my grandfather. My grandfather passed away when I was young. He had a passion for writing and he always shared with me the texts he wrote. Some are short stories he wrote for his grandchildren, others are about his experiences in the war, about my grandmother or just about his thoughts. This has been a project in the back of my mind for years. I wanted to do a piece about his writings and I finally started to put them into english (not because the work had to be in english, but because this is my adoptive language and I felt it would be interesting to have them translated). I have started this several times but for some reason or another it has never taken a complete form, maybe it is something I have to work on little by little, in fragments.

It is good to have time now to pick this up again. I have finished one of his texts and I would like to share it. I have chosen this one for no particular reason, it happens it was written from my parents house in Santander, and I have just been looking at some footage I took last summer from the same balcony, of a lighting storm at night. The city was very quiet and I couldn’t hear thunder, only lighting flashing every now and then.Maybe I will put the video up sometime. For now, here is the text…

A journey into the coreless night. Continue Reading »

Today I have spent the day looking at footage I’ve collected over the last year. Last summer in Santander: planes, clouds, lighting storm, New York last month: more planes, trains, busy streets, and Granada last week: swallows, mountains, wind turbines… and also some tests I did in my studio at Bloc with some family photographs…which I will return to later.

When you look at so much material, it is difficult to make decisions, to stop looking and start selecting, editing, cutting. In a very long take I filmed a seagull standing on a roof opposite my parents house in Santander. It just stayed there, looking over the city, contemplating, not able to decide on which direction to take off.

Today, I feel like that seagull, from this little white room, revising, looking and wondering, hoping for concrete ideas to take flight at any point…

so here is a little clip of the seagull…

Today I have started my one-month residency at Occursus (in Site Gallery, Sheffield). Here I will be updating a journal with thoughts and images of my progress. I have various plans for my time at Site but I will mainly be working on a new piece of video work.

My recent work revolves around ideas of travel and home and the relationship between the two. I work with footage that I collect from different places I have visited, or with found footage that I re-edit. The new work I will be working on will be written in collaboration with artist Markus Lantto, with whom I have previously collaborated during my residency in Norway. We will be working long-distance and I feel this will become an integral part of the work as this new work will revolve around ideas of distant observation, travel, exploration and maps. I am interested in dysfunctional maps, imaginary or obsolete maps. I have been fascinated by the history of Percival Lowell’s misinterpretations of Martian Canals. Link to article on Percival Lowell

These are some subjects which I will develop during this residency. I am very much looking forward to start working…

Today I start my one-month residency at Occursus (hosted by Site Gallery in Sheffield).

I will be writing a journal at the Occursus website with thoughts and images from my progress.

For more info you can visit:

Occursus website