August 2009

Screener for Myths Made Art distributed worldwide online by Contemporary Arts Media (http://www.artfilms.com.au).

This collection by ARTE takes us along the heart of arts known as “first” and discovers major works of Africa, Oceania, Americas or Asia. The myth behind each one of these works gives us insight into its creation, uses and history. Each film reveals the imagination of a culture with a different vision of the world.

* KAIAPO PLUMAGE
Director : Philippe Truffault
The Kaiapo Indians, natives of the Amazon, are unsurpassed in the art of featherwork – an art which reflects the importance of birds in their world view.

* HURDY-GURDY WITH HORSE HEAD,MONGOLIA
Director : Philippe Truffault
The Mongolian name for this two-stringed instrument is “morin-xuur” or horsehead violin. Covered in gold and multicoloured-coloured decorations and adorned with the sculpted heads of horses and dragons, they are 1.2 metres long and probably date back about a hundred years.

* DOGON HEDDLE PULLEY
Directors: Philippe
Truffault, Ludovic Segarra
For the Dogon clan of Mali, Africa, all actions are ociated with a complex ritual and belief system. The art of weaving is no different, it is a symbol of the spoken word, a fundamental expression of this culture’s cosmological ideas.

* MAORI PENDANT
Director : Jean — Loïc Portron
A hei tiki is an image of an ancestor that one wears. These pendants are precious objects handed down in families from generation to generation. Some even have names. They create a link between the living and the dead, erasing distances created by time and space.

* FANG RELIQUARY FIGURINE
Director : Philippe Truffault
In Fang ancestor-worship, in Gabon, the skulls of close relatives are placed in a bark vessel known as the dwelling of the souls. Skulls and bone fragments are placed amongst pieces of cut-up bark stained with padouk, a lucky plant, and other talismans. On the lid of the vessel are placed one or more wooden figurines, their large tin eyes absently contemplating everyday life in the house, as if they belonged to another world.

* THE MARQUESAS ISLANDS EFFIGY
Director : Jean — Loïc Portron
This effigy is often presented as a sign of tattooist because of the motifs which decorate it, Marquisiens being accustomed to tattooing their body from head to foot. Actually, we are totally unaware of this object. Does it represent the image an important being? That of a deified ancestor? Which are the reasons of the silence which surrounds it?

French / English. Colour. 6 x 26 mins.

Duration : 0:1:14

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Technorati Tags: art, arte, arts, contemporary, dogon, Head, horse, hurdy-gurdy, kaiapo, made, media, mongolia, Myths, philippe, plumage, truffault

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