Art in Isolation: Chantal Akerman’s “From the East”
When millions of people across the United States and world began to adjust daily routines back in March of 2020 due to rising COVID-19 cases and subsequent lockdown orders, entertainment venues and museums —like so many businesses—were forced to think outside the box. Those kind of institutions hold several large, often sold out in-person events on a weekly basis, so would transitioning to a strictly online presence be feasible, and more importantly, would patrons remain similarly interested as they would in person?
The Minneapolis Walker Art Center cautiously leapt down that rabbit hole, adapting existing programming like Free First Saturday, film screenings, and artist talks to the small screen, while also brainstorming new ideas to keep their isolated community engaged. One of the new ideas was called ‘Art in Isolation’, a recently concluded video series featuring Walker staff volunteering to discuss and interpret their favorite works from the Walker collection through the thematic lens of isolation.
As Walker’s Film Specialist and Projectionist, I immediately knew I wanted to contribute to the series by selecting a film from the massive media archives, and almost as instantly, I knew what film I wanted to talk about. Chantal Akerman’s From the East (D’Est) 1993.
Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, world renowned filmmaker Chantal Akerman (1950–2015) composed a document detailing her interest in creating a documentary focused on a “grand journey across Eastern Europe”. In the document, Akerman described everything from “historical, social and political” reasons, to news media’s rare “calm and attentive gaze” of the region, along with her deeply personal connection to the subject, as motivation — Akerman was born in Brussels, Belgium to Holocaust survivors from Poland.
From Jeanne Dielman (1975), News from Home (1977), American Stories: Food, Family and Philosophy (1989) all the way through to her swan song No Home Movie (2015), Akerman has gifted to us an extraordinary body of work, and while she is often grouped together with like-minded masters of experimental and ‘slow cinema’ — albeit logically so — her approach to any subject or piece of material is uniquely singular.
Watch here as I speak about why Akerman’s minimalist style and non-judgmental, exploratory lens offers a perspective which may be immensely relevant to viewing the world today.
I’m extremely proud of this piece, and particularly delighted by the newly developed relationship with the kind folks at the Chantal Akerman Foundation and Belgium Cinematek during the process of creating this piece over the last two months.
“When people are enjoying a film they say ‘I didn’t see the time go by’… but I think that when time flies and you don’t see time passing by you are robbed of an 1h30 or 2h of your life… With my films you’re aware of every second passing through your body.” — Chantal Akerman
