On Exile, fragments in search of a meaning is an experimental film that looks at the phenomenon of depression as a process of radical otherness, estrangement and exile from oneself, eliciting empathetic relations from the viewer. As an anthropology of mental illness, this project is concerned with human vulnerability, and the multiple identities that inhabit and haunt us. Ten people willingly share their own stories and feelings on depression, their darkest moments and the ways they cope with it. Through a documentary approach, psychological portraits are created, reinforced by a second performative moment where each interviewee enters a cathartic journey, by listening to a song they previously chose. Although isolated, the participants compose a polyphony of suffering and ultimate hope. It is in a metaphorical state of exile from the land of normalcy and happiness (as social and personal constructs), that the depressed individual perceives himself – and it is to that idealized place that he ultimately desires to return. The work’s referent is the unimaginable pain that constitutes severe depression, a dimension that resists definition. Excluded from the visible world, there is substantial misunderstanding and stigma around the disease. Moreover, there seems to be a deficit in its representation. On Exile… is inevitably an imperfect attempt to capture such experience, and an opportunity for exercising empathy. What is at stake in working with these individuals is the opening up of a space where mental illness is not expelled from visual and discursive practices, or hidden in political correctness.

watch trailer

biografia

José Carlos Teixeira (b. 1977, Portugal) is a visual artist, researcher and filmmaker. His work has been shown internationally in venues such as the Hammer Museum, LACE (Los Angeles), Armory Center for the Arts (Pasadena), Museum of the City of New York, Residency Unlimited (NY), SPACES, MOCA (Cleveland), Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts (Princeton), Württembergischer Kunstverein (Stuttgart), Rosalux, DAZ (Berlin), 104 Cent Quatre (Paris), National Center for Contemporary Art (Moscow), M. K. Ciurlionis National Museum (Kaunas), Hélio Oiticica Art Center (Rio de Janeiro), S. P. Cultural Center (São Paulo), Oriente Foundation (Macau), Gulbenkian Foundation, Carmona e Costa Foundation, Carpe Diem (Lisbon), FBAUP Museum, and Soares dos Reis Museum (Porto), to name a few. Recent solo shows at MAAT Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology (Lisbon), and MMOCA Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.Teixeira circulates his work mostly in the art world, but has also shown it in festivals such as the Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, Currents: Santa Fe International New Media Festival, Athens International Film and Video Festival, Silverlake Film Festival, LA Freewaves, Arthouse Asia, Respect Film Festival, among others.He was awarded the FUSO Festival Jury Prize 2011, and the 2005 EDP New Artists Prize nomination. In addition, Teixeira was a filmmaker-in-residence at the presitigious Akademie Schloss Solitude (Germany), MacDowell Colony, and the Headlands Center for the Arts, in the United States.He holds a master’s degree from UCLA, and currently teaches at UW-Madison (USA).

back