ALEKSANDRA CZERNIAWSKA – Vertov Temporary Museum

Organizers: Arsenal Gallery in Białystok (Poland), Polish Institute in Kiev

Place of presentation: Museum of the Cinema, Odessa, Ukraine

“The project “Vertov Temporary Museum” consists of several elements, namely of reconstruction of letters, notes and photos of Dziga Vertov. I started working on the project in 2008, and the immediate impulse for its implementation was the fact that Dziga Vertov was born in Białystok. However, the city lacks virtually any memorable places related to him. She found a photo of a page of his story outline on the Internet and reconstructed the rest of the pages in the process of watching the film. Manuscripts and artificially “aged” photos are placed side by side with the drawings.

All this structure is tainted with a grain of fiction. The author invented the figure that appears next to him on the photos, and its presence is felt throughout the story. I am incarnated in this figure in order to be closer to Vertov.

This project was presented in the places connected with Vertov’s biography, which creates another level of this quasi-historic intrigue. It was presented in Białystok where he was born and raised in Białystok, and in St. Petersburg where he studied at the university. It would be a very great adventure to travel along his pathways to Odessa where he created his best film “Man with a Movie Camera”.