2022
Single channel video, sound, 40 minutes
Quarries follows the mysteries surrounding prehistoric stone tools from Kenya alongside the neglected labor of stonemasons who paved the streets of Lisbon.
The humble gesture of these artisans, stooped over the pavement, morphs into a confrontation with the hubristic act of monument building. For the artist’s brother, the struggle to regain the use of his hands after a serious injury transforms into a narrative about agency in the face of being forgotten, marginalized and deemed of no importance.
An out-of-print photography book on Portuguese stone pavements leads to a series of improbable connections. A tour of a neurobiology lab leads to an examination of a Cold War re-education camp where prisoners were forced to dig up stones to create replicas of antiquity while covertly drawing on stone shards to mark and then bury a trace of their stories. In Quarries, Ga extracts stories of resistance from unlikely places and on overlooked surfaces.
Special thanks to: Mt Tremper Arts, New York; the Swedish Arts Council; AIR 351, Cascais; the Luso-American Foundation; Les Amis de Jeu du Paume.
Exhibition & Screening History:
Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Bryn Mawr, PA, 2022
Arktisen Upeeta Film Festival, Jyväskylä, Finland, 2022
Linea d’Ombra Festival, Salerno, Italy, 2022
New York Film Festival, New York, US, 2022
Let us Reflect Film Festival, Saint-Gaudens, France, 2022
Fata Morgana, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2022
FID festival of documentary film, Marseille, 2022
Quarries, Bureau, New York , 2022
The humble gesture of these artisans, stooped over the pavement, morphs into a confrontation with the hubristic act of monument building. For the artist’s brother, the struggle to regain the use of his hands after a serious injury transforms into a narrative about agency in the face of being forgotten, marginalized and deemed of no importance.
An out-of-print photography book on Portuguese stone pavements leads to a series of improbable connections. A tour of a neurobiology lab leads to an examination of a Cold War re-education camp where prisoners were forced to dig up stones to create replicas of antiquity while covertly drawing on stone shards to mark and then bury a trace of their stories. In Quarries, Ga extracts stories of resistance from unlikely places and on overlooked surfaces.
Special thanks to: Mt Tremper Arts, New York; the Swedish Arts Council; AIR 351, Cascais; the Luso-American Foundation; Les Amis de Jeu du Paume.
Exhibition & Screening History:
Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Bryn Mawr, PA, 2022
Arktisen Upeeta Film Festival, Jyväskylä, Finland, 2022
Linea d’Ombra Festival, Salerno, Italy, 2022
New York Film Festival, New York, US, 2022
Let us Reflect Film Festival, Saint-Gaudens, France, 2022
Fata Morgana, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2022
FID festival of documentary film, Marseille, 2022
Quarries, Bureau, New York , 2022