THE PASOLINI PROJECT [1990 – ongoing]

Time-based media / installation / bookwork & texts

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The PASOLINI PROJECT is an extended critical meditation on the life and work of Italian filmmaker and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini. As a politically engaged artist and openly gay man living in the tumultuous Italy of the 1960s and '70s, Pasolini became synonymous with scandal and 'otherness' despite the fact that he was highly respected as an artist and intellectual. He was assassinated in 1975 leaving behind a rich and varied body of filmic and written work. The PASOLINI PROJECT investigates and examines Pasolini’s works, texts and images, from which discrete, often installation-based artworks are created in an attempt to reclaim his 'otherness'. As a first-generation Italian-Canadian, the artist’s relationship with Pasolini is not that of a biographer, but that of a translator who shares a cultural and linguistic background with the filmmaker. The works that constitute the project thus implicitly also function as critical commentaries on identity and politics in their negotiation of the complexities of cultural translation and acculturation. 

 

The project consists of the following discrete works:                 

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• MURMURATIONS (ROME) [2017] Single-channel video

• FORO/FOSSE [2015] Mixed media installation

• PUNTO [2013] Single-channel video projection

• PONTE (ORIZONTALE) [2013] Embossed works on paper

• PONTE (VERTICALE) [2013] Mixed media installation

• THEOREM [2002/2015]  Video / mixed media 

• VOLGAR ELOQUIO [2002/2015] Video / mixed media (variable)

• SENZA PAROLE [2002/2015]  Video / mixed media (variable)

• TENEBRE [2002] Polaroid photographic prints

• CENERE [2002] Video / mixed media (variable)

• PARALLEL LINES [2005] Published artist project / poster - offset

• SOTTOTITOLI  [2005]  Vinyl lettering / mixed media

• TESTI [2005]  Video / mixed media (variable)

• NOVEMBER 2, 1975 [2002/2003] Unbound artist book - kodalith photographic prints / mixed media

• PICTURING PASOLINI (VERSION) [2002] Kodalith photographic prints

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VIEW: For an overview see the 'Pasolini Project' (1990-2022)  https://vimeo.com/780519096

 

WRITING

Gary Sangster, 'In Theory', Bandiera Nera. SCA Galleries, Sydney, 2015

Kate Griffin, Texts & Subtexts. Moving Image Centre, Auckland, 2003

Sherry Simon, Deviant Translations. Articule, Montréal, 2002

Will Kwan, Another Version: John Di Stefano’s Redeeming Translations. A Space Gallery, Toronto, 2002

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REVIEW

Aleksandr A. Wansbrough, “Archaeological Journeys: John Di Stefano’s Bandiera Nera”. Alphaville - Journal of Film & Screen Media, 2016

Frederico Camera, 'John Di Stefano’s Bandiera Nera'. Australasia Journal of Popular Culture, 2015

Laurence Simmons, 'Passion for Pasolini',  Illusions - Journal of Moving Image & Performance Criticism, 2004

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THE PASOLINI PROJECT is related to the installation BANDIERA NERA [2015]

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THEOREM [2002/2015] Mixed media installation