Aurelia Mihai — Portfolio — Slash Paris

Aurelia Mihai´s work brings clashing cultural, social, and political phenomena and events into focus. In her work Aurelia Mihai links aspects of documentation and research with fiction in a multifaceted way. Thus legends and historical incidents are frequently the occasion or the starting point for a socio critical examination of the present.

“Transhumanţa, which was created in Goch in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, is a two-channel video installation that follows a herd of sheep on its way from the countryside to the town. For a time the herd is accompanied by a shepherd (and the camera) on foot; then, from a helicopter’s perspective one sees the herd on a trailer behind a tractor travelling through rural Westphalian scenery until it arrives in the narrow streets of the small town.
Both projections evoke an impression of displacement: the sheep do not belong in those asphalted streets — not as a herd nor as passengers on a tractor’s trailer; they do not belong near those brick houses, or in those pedestrian zones or those playgrounds. The clearest indication that the sheep are totally out of place in this north German urban environment are the looks on the faces of the passers-by, who stop their everyday activities to stare after the black and motley coloured herd. The climax of the strangeness occurs in the final scene when, much to their surprise, the sheep find themselves in a museum; the slippery parquet flooring hinders them from running and jumping, so they walk around amidst the exhibits, wide-eyed. Transhumanţa (from Latin ‘trans’ meaning over, and ‘humus’, earth; English: transhumance) is the Romanian word for the twice yearly seasonal movement of sheep herds from lowland to highland pastures and back again. This saves the trouble of keeping the sheep indoors in the winter, and used to be practiced all over Europe.”

— Julia Draganovic (2008)

Lupa

Lupa est un court métrage d’investigation autour de la sculpture de la Louve Capitoline. Symbole mythique associé à la fondation de Rome, cette œuvre est reproduite dans plusieurs pays : rien qu’en Roumanie, il existe 22 reproductions de la statue. La narration du film est assurée par la louve elle-même ; refusant d’être un symbole passif, elle dresse le portrait historique de ses différentes reproductions à travers le monde.

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