Claudio Zulian, “La montagna incantata”

Much of his work seeks to give visibility and voice to the less privileged groups in our society; in 1998, he curated the exhibition “Escenes del Raval” (1998) at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), which included a documentary about that Barcelona neighbourhood. He subsequently made “Horas de la ciudad”  (2002), “Visions del Carmel” (2003), “L’avenir” (2004), and “A través del Carmel”  (2006). The latter, conceived as a documentary but also as a video installation, won the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize and the National Film Award of Catalonia.

He has been selected for numerous international festivals, such as the Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival, and has won awards repeatedly. In 2013, the Jeu de Paume, a Parisian centre specialising in photography and image, dedicated a monographic exhibition to him, “Histoires de l’avenir”, featuring a retrospective of his work and the premiere of a new piece: “Power no power” (2013). He has recently exhibited at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporanea, the Palau de la Virreina in Barcelona, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville, among others.

His feature film, “Constel·lació Portabella”, was part of the Venice Classici section at the 81st edition of the Venice Film Festival in 2024. In this work, he portrays the filmmaker Pere Portabella, a prominent intellectual and activist as well as a film director, through interviews with specialists, friends and collaborators.

Sound installation

“S’Ubac”, instal·lació sonora, 2000

S’Ubac is the name of the forest where the annual pilgrimage of Sa Pobla is held. It is, therefore, a sacred place. For the artist, this forest seemed like a place capable of representing the tension that inhabits this village, as in many others, where the mythical, the religious, the popular and the folkloric coexist with rapid modernisation. For almost a year, Claudio Zulian collected oral testimonies, songs and soundscapes, until he had gathered five themes that structure the piece: the current memory of the past; the attempt to define the identity of the place; the social problems of the present; self-reflection; and a poetic operation in which a woman, a man and a girl read the epitaphs in the cemetery of Sa Pobla. Between the epitaphs, the beeping of an old answering machine can be heard, as if those voices were messages left on the telephone. The past is nothing more than a feature of the present.

Audiovisuals

“L’Avenir”, video installation and film, 2004

The images of a place have different natures. Some are born in the memory and imagination of this or that group of inhabitants; others are brought by travellers who have passed through; urban plans, expert studies, political and social struggles, and capital investments give rise to others. All of them coexist, between tension and contagion. In countless encounters with the residents – who were unreservedly friendly – it seemed that concern for the future – personal, neighbourhood, regional – was a nucleus around which many images and narratives gravitated. All of this constitutes the raw material of “L’Avenir”. The main square is the place where the images and voices are displayed and where the inhabitants of Meurchin can take them back, after giving them to us, to continue, if they see fit, weaving their future.

“L’Avenir”, Claudio Zulian, 2004

“A través del Carmel”, video installation and feature-length documentary, 2006

For six months, Claudio Zulian and his team worked in the neighbourhood with around forty groups and fifteen individuals, capturing their images and voices and involving more than a hundred people. The monitor screens installed in the neighbourhood – some were already there, others were put up for the project – became windows through which one could glimpse two hours of life in the neighbourhood on 10 February 2006, filmed without interruption from 4 to 6 p.m. The residents invited people into their homes, workshops and daily occupations, explaining what a typical day was like, summarising the origins and the future.

“A través del Carmel”, Claudio Zulian, 2006

“Just like Paradise – A lo mejor”, video installation, 2007

Through an obvious fact: the presence of Romanian immigrants in Castellón, the project, instead of portraying the city from the perspective of this group, chose to capture the fantasies of family members who have remained in the Dimbovita region of Romania and who only know it from chronicles and travellers’ images. In the testimonies of these relatives and friends, the city takes on another appearance, a face that, although imagined, is no less authentic or real.

“Just like Paradise”, Claudio Zulian, 2007

“La montagna incantata”, feature-length documentary and expanded cinema, 2023

In the manner of the characters in Thomas Mann’s novel that gives the film its title, in the strange suspended time of lockdown, twenty-five people confined to their homes reflect on their lives, on the society in which they live, on the changes in the world and their environment. The Magic Mountain is a fresco of the tensions currently affecting Europe. It is composed of footage shot with cameras and mobile phones by the participants themselves, who agreed to take on the role of filmmakers and camera operators and follow the instructions of the director, Claudio Zulian. The images are the result of patient work, through long discussions about intentions, possibilities, and the right moment for filming. In this strange period, there was no other way to do it. However, there is a great advantage to this way of working: it achieves an intimacy with people that no film crew could have achieved.

“La montagna incantata”, Claudio Zulian, 2023

Biography

He was born in Italy (Campodarsego, Padua) in 1965 and currently resides in Barcelona. He holds a PhD in Aesthetics, Science and Technology of the Arts from the University of Paris-Saint Denis (France). He is the author of a multifaceted body of work covering cinema, television, visual arts, music, theatre and literature. He has taught courses, workshops and lectures at various universities and cultural and artistic centres and writes regularly for magazines and newspapers.