Switzerland Tourism is pleased to present Julianknxx: In A Dream We Were Once Beautiful, the artist's first presentation of this newly commissioned film to be exhibited from September 9-11.
The poet, visual artist and filmmaker was invited earlier this year by Switzerland Tourism to conduct research and make work in four separate Swiss cities - Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Lausanne. Shot in Switzerland, Julianknxx’s latest film, In A Dream We Are At Once Beautiful, examines the lines between reality and fantasy, and our ability to dream on our own terms - asking, whose dreams are we attempting to live?
Presented as a two-channel film, shot in 2.39:1 widescreen, In A Dream We Were Once Beautiful offers a series of rich vignettes that play with the integration of nature and urbanity within the four Swiss cities. The work is punctuated with stanzas from Julianknxx’s poem, As Long As The Sun Lasts, and an original score born from a collaboration between the artist and musician anaiis. The camera slowly flows toward and through spaces as though it has been seduced by the setting – leaving the viewer to question whether the film’s cast are subjects or protagonists as they float, stand, and move through the landscape.
Julianknxx’s work merges his poetic practice with films and performance; he engages in a form of existential inquiry that at once seeks to find ways of expressing the ineffable realities of human experiences while examining the structures through which we live.