Courtesy of the artist
Jeff Ostergren, Still from Olympia, 2012, video.
Not all the stories of our community are merely local. We share in some larger, painful narratives, such as the one currently being told of the arrogance towards women that marks much of our current political frenzy, with its condescending dismissal of who they are and what the have a right to.
This video — the fourth in an Independent series of commissioned works by local artists, to create a “virtual” gallery show — confronts the outrages of the moment with a 19th Century critique of similar prejudices, illustrated with a unique sequence by Jeff Ostergren.
He describes his project below:
Olympia combines the introduction to Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” with a gentle barrage of conflicting imagery. It is constructed using a methodology of colliding stream of consciousness web surfing with precise historical references, creating juxtapositions that are both accidental and purposeful, specific and vague, emitting from the conscious and the subconscious. The intent is to leave the viewer with a queasy sensation of the contemporary state of production, accumulation, and consumption of culture in all its forms, particularly in regards to our current politics of gender.
– Jeff Ostergren
Other examples of the artist’s work can be found here.