Monte Vista Projects is proud to present “Somewhere In Between: Silicon Valley, 2012” a two-screen video installation by Los Angeles-based artist Bia Gayotto.
For several years, artist Bia Gayotto has been using an interdisciplinary approach that combines video, collaboration, fieldwork and interviews to examine how ideas of identity and culture intersect in places, objects, and people's everyday lives. In previous projects, Gayotto has chosen elements in the landscape or in urban environments to explore community responses to specific situations or locations, such as commuting spaces in L.A., mountains and women explorers in Banff, Canada, and the sea and islanders in the Azores, Portugal.
Somewhere In Between is a two-screen video installation that investigates a sense of place through the intercultural experience of first- and second-generation immigrants in Silicon Valley. Residents were invited to participate in an interview and video shoot through an open call, and were asked questions designed to stimulate a dialogue reflecting the pluralities of place, identity, and belonging. For the installation at Monte Vista Projects, these interviews can be heard using an MP3 player and headphones, separate from the video.
Somewhere In Between is the second iteration in a series that also includes Los Angeles and Chicago. The videos' compositions—which take the form of portraiture, still life, and landscape—use varied elements, such as close-ups and long shots. Inspired by John Cage, chance plays an important role in the project, from the demographics of people who respond to the artist's call for participation to the different neighborhoods in which the videos are shot. Although Gayotto's approach alludes to the traditions of documentary and ethnographic film, during post-production she utilizes non-linear poetic strategies, including montage, multiple projections, sound effects, and looping. The sequence of scenes shown on both screens creates fleeting and serendipitous juxtapositions between (and among) people and their environments, resulting in broad, multilayered portraits of the cities Gayotto considers.
Gayotto received her MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles. Her work has been featured nationally and internationally, including exhibitions at the Pasadena Museum of California Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Image and Sound, São Paulo. She has received numerous grants and awards and served as artist-in-residence at the Banff Centre, Canada, the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, and “Threewalls” in Chicago. Currently, she serves as adjunct faculty at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and as a visiting lecturer at California State University, LA. Her interest in intercultural space stems from her own cross-cultural upbringing and a desire to portray individuals whose identities are in a constant process of “becoming” as a result of a physical or cultural dislocation.
This project was made possible by the Lucas Artists Residency Program at Montalvo Arts Center. Special thanks to the Luckman Gallery at Cal State Los Angeles.