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.
Ellie Ga interviewed by Cyril Neyrat for FID Marseille, read here
Ellie Ga in conversation with Aily Nash, New York Film Festival 2023, video here
Exhibition & Screening History:
Galeria Zé dos Bois, Portugal, 2025
Bureau @ Labor, Mexico City, Mexico, 2024
The International Festival of Films on Art, Montreal, CA, 2024
Festival FAA—Les Ateliers de Moison, France, 2023
Age d’Or Festival, Cinematek, Brussels, 2023
The High Line, New York City, 2023
Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Maine, 2023
Singapore International Film Festival,Singapore, 2022
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
Bureau, New York , 2022
Collections
Frac-Sud, Marseille
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.
Ellie Ga interviewed by Cyril Neyrat for FID Marseille, read here
Ellie Ga in conversation with Aily Nash, New York Film Festival 2023, video here
Quarries Excerpt from Ellie Ga on Vimeo.
Exhibition & Screening History:
Galeria Zé dos Bois, Portugal, 2025
Bureau @ Labor, Mexico City, Mexico, 2024
The International Festival of Films on Art, Montreal, CA, 2024
Festival FAA—Les Ateliers de Moison, France, 2023
Age d’Or Festival, Cinematek, Brussels, 2023
The High Line, New York City, 2023
Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Maine, 2023
Singapore International Film Festival,Singapore, 2022
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
Bureau, New York , 2022
Collections
Frac-Sud, Marseille