Director: Florian Zeyfang
→ show biography ← hide biography
Biography: Florian Zeyfang born 1965 in Stuttgart, Germany. 1987 to 1993 at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. 1997/8 at the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York, currently Professor for Video/Installation at the Art Academy in Umeå, Sweden. In his texts, videos and installation work, the Berlin based artist, videomaker and writer Florian Zeyfang critically looks at the connotations of a globalized world of media signs and at the consequences for the society and the individual, taking into account historic aspects of both art and political movements. His projects are conceived within different forms of the moving image: film, video, slide projection, animation. Spacious installations as well as slide series ("slow films") form an important part of his discussion of “time-based media.” Florian Zeyfang regularly takes part in exhibitions nationally and abroad, recently in Kunstverein Köln, at A Gentil Carioca, Rio de Janeiro, at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Artists Space, New York; at the 2nd Tirana Biennale, at ICA Moscow, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf and Kunstverein Hannover, at the 6th Werkleitz Biennale in Halle and at the KW Berlin. Furthermore, the artist curates projects for institutions like CCA Ujazdowski Castle in Warschau, sala rekalde in Bilbao, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, the 8th Havanna Biennale, the foto festival in Houston, in the Museum for Applied Arts Wien, in the MAK Schindlerhaus in Los Angeles and the Swiss Institute in New York. Currently, Florian Zeyfang works on exhibition projects ranging between Art and experimental film (“Poor Man´s Expression”, Berlin 2006; “1,2,3 Avant-Gardes”, Warschau/Stuttgart/Bilbao 2006-2008).
Lisa Schmidt-Colinet and Alexander Schmoeger are architects and live in Vienna. Since 2001 Schmidt-Colinet/Schmoeger and Florian Zeyfang have collaborated on exhibitions and projects. Together with Eugenio Valdés Figueroa they published “Pabellón Cuba,” an extensive reader on art, architecture, and film in Cuba.
Director: Lisa Schmidt-Colinet
→ show biography ← hide biography
Biography: Lisa Schmidt-Colinet and Alexander Schmoeger are architects and live in Vienna. Florian Zeyfang is an artist and filmmaker from Berlin. Since 2001 Schmidt-Colinet/Schmoeger and Florian Zeyfang have collaborated on exhibitions and projects. Together with Eugenio Valdés Figueroa they published “Pabellón Cuba,” an extensive reader on art, architecture, and film in Cuba.
Country: Germany
Year: 2015
Synopsis: Institute Above-Ground is a documentary narrative about visionary architecture in Cuba. The “Instituto technologico de suelos y fertilizantes André Voisin” is a symbol of the early, euphoric building experiments that emerged shortly after the revolution. In addition, it represents an early example of the politics of the “rural schools,” with which Cuba sought to decentralize education during the 1970s. The whole facility was designed by Vittorio Garatti in 1961, one of the three architects at the famous art school in Havana. The Instituto André Voisin, an agricultural school, is much less well-known and is located in the fertile plain near Güines. The architecture, assembled on site from concrete elements, has a futuristic look, not least through its only intermittent contact points with the ground, which is regularly flooded due to rice cultivation in the area. The footbridges floating above the landscape link the various buildings into a modern living and studying space. The institute was originally constructed for the 2000 students who lived, worked, ate, and slept there. Later it was used as a military prison and today it stands in the landscape like a stranded spaceship: a kind of ark for ideas that still have to be realized.
Language: Spanish, German, English
Forum participation year: 2015
