Patty Chang © Makenzie Goodman
BANK is pleased to announce that Patty Chang’s film Invocation for a Wandering Lake: Parts 1 & 2 (2016) has been selected by Ballroom Marfa for the 2021 season of Artists’ Film International (AFI). AFl celebrates moving image work and is selected by a global partnership of arts organisations. Each nominates an outstanding work from their region which is screened across each venue during the year.
The work calls for contemplation of human and non-human lives, the natural environment, and destructive geopolitical forces, as we witness the artist in ritual acts of care and mourning. The lifeless body of a whale floats off the coast of Newfoundland’s Fogo Islands, a former fishing hub. The artist Patty Chang is seen meditatively washing the deceased animal. With similar attention, she scrubs the shell of an abandoned ship in the desert of Muynak, Uzbekistan, a defunct seaport on the receded Aral Sea. These repetitive acts seem almost absurd and unnecessary, as these entities could never return to life. Nevertheless, she continues to perform rituals of care, perhaps as a way to process their fateful ends. Over the last year, we collectively experienced extreme loss due to the ongoing pandemic. If we are to create new ways of living, perhaps we first need to practice ways of mourning, mending, and contemplating through rituals of care, as the film suggests.
