Time Lines

Ever since Runa Islam began experimenting with film and video in the 1990s, the language and magic of cinematography has been the very focal point of her art. Characteristic for Islam, who was born in Bangladesh but who lives and works in London, is that she uses sophisticated techniques to create contradictory and intersecting narratives. She explores the storytelling aspects of film and its problems of space and time, harking back to the avant-garde movies of both the prewar and postwar eras. With her intense engagement with the aesthetics of colour nuances, lighting, camerawork, and dramaturgy, Islam makes us more acutely aware of film as an artistic medium.

Time Lines is a 35 mm film projection of sights and sounds from the Montjuïc funicular in Barcelona. The film dwells on the funicular and its gliding movement through the air, as well as on two other kinetic, architectural phenomena: a crane that can turn 360 degrees around, and a rotating plane from an amusement park on the other side of the city. The people in the funicular carriages and the crane are dressed in clothes from the 1920s, representing the modernity of the early twentieth century. Both in itself and in its movements, the funicular can be seen as a metaphor for time. But also Time Lines shifts its temporal frame of reference, intertwining different epochs (before and after Franco) and inviting the viewers to interpret the opposing references and imagery for themselves.