Many Gardner Museum Artists-in-Residence work in the medium of film, video, and digital projection. In the summer of 2012, the Museum presented a selection of nine projections in the Special Exhibition Gallery. Ranging in length from just a few minutes to almost an hour, the works were shown in a continuous loop during open hours, highlighting a different work each week and providing a unique opportunity to view these works.

Click the Schedule tab to learn about Artists-in-Residence, their films, and dates they were on view.

Image: Dayanita Singh, File Room (detail), 2011. Courtesy of Frith Street Gallery, London.

This exhibition was made possible in part by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The Gardner Museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

June 21-25 | DAVID WILSON
Bol'shoe Sovietskoie Zatmenia (The Great Soviet Eclipse), 2009 / 48 min.
Set in the summer of 1936 during the most spectacular solar eclipse of the 20th century in the Soviet Union, this film focuses on the accomplishments and promising careers of the astronomers of the Pulkovo Observatory in St. Petersburg and the path of their terrible undoing at the hands of Stalin's NKVD.
Read about David Wilson's residency at the Gardner Museum.

June 27-July 2 | ACKROYD & HARVEY
Out of the Blue, 2012 / 4:16 min.
On April 15, 2010 the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland erupted, and for six days the skies above the UK were free of air traffic, providing a unique opportunity to experience life without the pollution air travel causes both acoustically and visually. Out of the Blue is a meditation on the power of silence when the sky is momentarily stilled.
Read about Acrkoyd & Harvey's residency.

July 4-9 | LIDA ABDUL
In Transit, 2008 / 4 min.
A performance-based video staged in Afghanistan. It is a response to the spectacle of violence in war through the eyes of children.
Read about Lida Abdul's residency.

July 11-16 | SU-MEI TSE
Mistelpartition, 2006 / 6:49 min.
A slow travelling shot through a landscape of a row of trees, which appear like a musical score. Melancholy silence is broken by mysterious music. The notes are visualized one by one through illuminations in the mistletoe branches--the distant reflection of a lost tune.
Read about Su-Mei Tse's residency.

July 18-23 | HENRIK HÅKANSSON
The 12th of Never (Extract from the Void), 2000 / 20 min.
Made in the jungles of Trinidad, this haunting and enigmatic work documents the artist's attempt to communicate with insects.
Read about Henrick Håkansson's residency.

July 25-30 | CLIFF EVANS
Empyrean, 2007 / 6:32 min.
This film, which premiered at the Gardner Museum, creates a loose but provocative narrative around the subjects of power and population control, coded with interesting and often humorous subtexts. Empyrean's themes were developed through an absurd juxtaposition of both benign traditions and disturbing pathologies: wellness tourism, missionary practice, militaristic domination.
This film may not be appropriate for younger audiences.
Read about Cliff Evans's residency, or watch Empyrean online.

August 1-6 | DAYANITA SINGH
File Room Slideshow, 2011
A digital slide projection of 41 black and white photographs from the File Room series shown as part of Illuminations at the Venice Biennale in 2010, and, depicting paper archives from across India.
Read about Dayanita Singh's residency.

August 8-13 | LUISA RABBIA
Travels with Isabella, 2008 / 26:30 min.
A video composite of archival photographs collected by Isabella Stewart Gardner in 1883 in China merged with the Rabbia's drawings and digital art. A fantastical construct, an enigmatic landscape created by cutting out, reframing and combining images and drawings, weaving two very personal journeys into one.
Read about Luisa Rabbia's residency.

August 15-20 | MELVIN MOTI
No Show (2004) / 24 min.
Making reference to a historical event that took place at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg during World War II, this film revolves around an exhibition, which only appears to the eye through a conscious act of imagination.
Read about Melvin Moti's residency.