Rosa Barba : drawn by the pulse

Image: Rosa Barba, Drawn by the Pulse, 2018. 35mm film sculpture. Film still © Rosa Barba. Produced by Tabakalera, Donostia.

The work of Rosa Barba (italian born, living in Germany) contests and recasts truth and fiction, myth and reality, metaphor and material to a disorientating degree, which ultimately extends into a conceptual practice.

From her earliest proposals during the late nineties until her most recent work, Barba has woven a web of sculptures, installations, films and artist’s books. Taking the cinematic medium – particularly its mechanical materiality as well as the film itself – as points of departure, the artist questions our present reality and our way of occupying the space that surrounds us. She also proposes open debates regarding what is still to come. Through her unusual treatment of time and language, the artist creates new narratives and spatial pieces in which time itself is understood as a kind of accumulation, rather than a linear progression. On occasion, language eludes its semiotic function and moves towards abstraction, thus complicating how the work is read and heard.

At the center of her solo exhibit, is Barba’s new filmic sculpture Drawn by the Pulse (2018), produced by Tabakalera. This piece from which the show takes its title presents one of a series of new filmic sculptures on the subject of the artist’s ongoing research on Astronomy and Cinema. The work, filmed at the Harvard College Observatory, brings together astronomic discoveries and cinematic techniques into one enigmatic piece.

The show includes a selection of sculptural pieces, single screen videos and 16 and 35mm films, including From Source to Poem(2016), co-produced by CAPC Musée d’art Contemporain de Bordeaux and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan with the participation of Tabakalera. The film explores the spaces where history and cultural heritage are conserved and their digitalization for the future, which falls within Barba’s long engagement with museum storage and archive sites.