Brazilian born artist Solange Fabião has documented New York, her place of residence today.
A digital video installation set up in the Aine art museum in Tornio is called Duration: 1 hour and 3 minutes - Location: 17.3 miles.
The installation was seen in New York in 2001 and in Mexico City at the end of the fall of 2002. To Tornio it traveled as part of Art Polaris, a project that links together three Lappish art museums and a Culture Power Station for a period of one month.
An installation settles down in space steadily. In the middle of the room a sculpture-like screen shows video pictures, which can also be seen through a X-shaped open form at the opposite side of the piece. Two still-pictures and sound add up to an installation. The video is freehandedly filmed from the vantage of Taxi passenger. During a Taxi travel sceneries of the Bronx and Manhattan down to Wall Street appear to a viewer.
Famed Broadway has entered Tornio and many social and economic conditions of New York introduce oneself. On Fabião`s own words Transitio is "an intended global dialogue, embodying a city within a city". High-speed and slow movement of picture take turns on video. Sometimes picture stays still on an object for a while but mostly free camera movement causes objects to swing. One hour of watching the video can be an affliction to ones eyes.
Fabião`s way of using the effective zoom of her camera in a diligent way leads to a somewhat anxious result. Still her anxiousness holds features one cannot dislike.
As the camera directs to long distance objects one can`t but be astonished by the expedients of the modern technology. Object zoomed from far displays its objectness still as the simultaneously flowing traffic makes comparisons of the elements of a city, often in an interesting manner. An insufferableness, commotion and a panic-like movement of a big city can be seen at work. Still and slow pictures show a place for everything (even for people) in New York.
Timo Jokelainen - Kaleva Newspaper,
January 20th, 2003
