The Guardians, 2014

Miami Beach 2015
The Guardians

Kalfayan Galleries

Installation
engraved marble slab
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Courtesy the artist and Kalfayan Galleries, Athens - Thessaloniki. The film of Adrian Paci, titled ‘The Guardians’ is poetic reflection of the relationship between childhood and death with a story that unfolds in the Catholic cemetery of Shkodra. During the artist’s childhood this old cemetery was no longer in use, but remained the only place in town where religious symbols could still be found, following the decision of the then Communist regime to ban all religious symbols as part of the campaign against religion which had peaked in the 1960s. The film portrays children who hung out at the cemetery and were paid by the by the owners or relatives to clean and take care of the tombs. “The image of the kids washing the tombs has been working inside myself for quite some time,” Adrian Paci has said “and I decided to use it in this video”. The film is characterized by Paci’s lyrical rhythm and poetic sequence maintaining a delicate balance between what is revealed and what it is being insinuated, formally and ideologically. It begins with abstract soundless scenes until some movements reveal a human presence. This is followed by a random series of portraits and close-ups of hands playing with the sand. The rhythm picks up and clearer images appear, those of children’s hands moving and cleaning. As the camera moves from the close up details and starts pulling up it becomes apparent that there are not just three or four kids present but the cemetery is crowded with children going around the tombs and cleaning them.