A Surprising Moment
As a surprise for our final day of term, our University course’s leader brought in a guest lecturer. This was to be an interesting experience.
I knew something rather different was going to occur as soon as I arrived at our classroom a few minutes early – our course leader was setting up a number of the iMacs with some kind of art demo, along with a lady who I’d not seen before; possibly one of the fabled few who live in the IT department.
I was hurriedly shooed out of the room, and waited until they’d finished setting up.
Shortly we were invited into the classroom by our course leader (the IT lady had gone by now) and she explained that we were getting a very special talk from an international curator, who’d kindly agreed to come and speak to us and review our work (possibly with a view to show in her gallery).
This surprised me, and rather frustrated me: after all, we’d not been given the chance to get our work ready for display. This seemed a potential opportunity missed.
A few minutes later, the curator appeared. She’d just landed from a trip to Shanghai and so had with her a (bright yellow) suitcase. Her name: Eno Morino. Her company: Dead or Alive Media and Artists International. Her nationality: Italian. Her demeanour: quite, quite odd. Her outfit: a bright pink wig and have a rather, uh, colourful jacket.
I was already beginning to wish I’d slept in.
A Sombre Moment
What followed was a very strange hour. She took us through a power point presentation regarding an Italian artist called Marina Moreno – someone Eno had known in the past, but who had gone missing a few years ago, and was believed to have tragically died.
It was at this point she asked us to stand up and have a one minute silence.
Yep. To stand up, in our classroom, and have a one minute silence.
And you know what? We did. I think we were all too baffled to know whether to laugh, be sombre or try and escape while we could, but I certainly didn’t look at anyone else’s face through that silence. Probably the most uncomfortable moment I’ve experienced in years.
After this, Eno took us through a video named Artist Wanted Dead or Alive. This showcased some of Marina Moreno’s previous works (which focused on identity and often involved video and collaboration with other artists across multiple forms of media). This would’ve been quite interesting were it not for the sheer awkwardness of the various interviews with former friends and colleagues interspersed with the clips, and watching Eno watch this herself.
It was very, very surreal, and I’ll be honest that I was seriously considering having a word with our course leader at the end of this – we seemed to be involuntary mourners for an artist we’d not heard of, and coupled with the frustration of having our work assessed without prior warning, I wasn’t best pleased.
A Confusing Moment
Afterwards, Eno asked us what we thought of the video. The air could be cut with a knife. No one wanted to say a word through fear of insulting Eno.
But still… “what we thought of the video”?
Why was that relevant?
Surely the video was a memorial to her friend and wasn’t just an… art… piece.
Oh.
No.
The Moment
As she was removing her glasses and coat, and our course leader was grinning and saying “You’ve still got the wig on, Marina”, the mug was falling to the floor and Keyser Söze was strolling off to his limo.
Yep. Eno Morino was a character. Created by none other than Marina Moreno, who was indeed an artist – very much living, however – and just so happened to be a personal friend of our course tutor.
She also struck a resounding resemblance to the “IT Lady” I’d seen but an hour earlier.
I’d fallen for it hook, line and sinker. Apparently there were some very obvious signs, but my sheer indignation about the position we’d been put in blinded me to that.
Here’s the “homage” to Marina, Wanted Dead or Alive:
Marina Moreno
Anyway, the following few hours were much more pleasant and we found out more about Marina:
Background
She’s Italian and has lived and worked in various parts of the world (from Holland to Mexico). She trained at the School of New Dance in Amsterdam and attained a Visual and Performing Arts (Dance) BA from Brighton University in 1991. Recently, she completed her Masters in Art Practice in Education at UCE Birmingham.
She’s currently based in Bristol, and runs a inter-disciplinary art company called UrbanLaguna with fellow artist Michael Meldru.
Work
She works in a number of areas, such as dance, sculptures, film and video production. She enjoys using multiple types of media (particularly loving to use film in various forms), having produced various pieces using video, live performance and photography.
She focuses on identity through many of her works. In her piece UMANALAGUNA, she shows the lives of four seemingly totally different people, all having immigrated to the UK for different reasons, going about their regular everyday lives. This was created as a reaction to racist attacks in Bristol a few years ago, and illustrates how similar we all are as human beings:
There are many other pieces, which also adopt the multiple-videos approach used in UMANALAGUNA, and are often exhibited across multiple screens in various positions.
Have a look at all of Marina’s videos on her Vimeo Channel.
As an aside, she’d taken her “Eno Morino” character to the Tate Modern a few weeks before, and watching the video of that occurring was most entertaining. Full question and answers with various real curators… it was comforting to see it wasn’t just me that’d fallen for it. 🙂
‘Til next time, arrivederci!
Pat