“Mirror workshop”, 1985 © Klonaris/Thomadaki, ADAGP, Paris, 2024. Photo: Katerina Thomadaki
“Body and Movement workshop”, 1987 © Klonaris/Thomadaki, ADAGP, Paris, 2024. Photo: Katerina Thomadaki
“Clothing and Identity workshop”, 1986 © Klonaris/Thomadaki, ADAGP, Paris, 2024. Photo: Katerina Thomadaki
“Mirror workshop”, 1985 © Klonaris/Thomadaki, ADAGP, Paris, 2024. Photo: Katerina Thomadaki
“Body and Movement workshop”, 1987 © Klonaris/Thomadaki, ADAGP, Paris, 2024. Photo: Katerina Thomadaki
“Clothing and Identity workshop”, 1986 © Klonaris/Thomadaki, ADAGP, Paris, 2024. Photo: Katerina Thomadaki
At Villa Vassilieff – AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions
Presentation of the 80s workshops by Catherine Bareau and Ana Bordenave.
Screening-performance of three films by Catherine Bareau.
Event produced with AWARE
The work of Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki stands out as exceptional in the 1970s and 1980s. As experimental filmmakers, visual artists and theorists, the groundbreaking couple created a body of work that integrated feminist and multimedia intentions. Their approach was profoundly experimental, politically engaged and subjective, emphasizing the importance of transmission and dialogue as extensions of their visual works. The Super-8 cinema workshops for women they organized in the 1980s reflect these intersections and the artists’ deep connection with the cultural and activist movements of the time. These workshops also became spaces for experimentation and collaborative filmmaking for the participants.
Two screenings and a projection-performance will be presented by Catherine Bareau, featuring films from the Super-8 workshops: Miroirs [Mirrors] (1985), Vêtement et identité [Clothing and Identity] (1986) and Corps et mouvement [Body and Movement] (1987). The screenings will be introduced by Ana Bordenave and will conclude with a discussion with the audience.
Catherine Bareau
Since the 1990s, Catherine Bareau has screened her films in various venues and festivals: the Cinémathèque française, Light Cone (Scratch), the association Braquage, the Collectif Jeune Cinéma, and her work can be found on platforms such as Tënk and Dérives autour du cinéma. She is a member of Etna and L’Abominable-Navire Argo, shared studios for filmmakers. She co-founded the Etna women’s film collective La Poudrière, which was programmed by the Cinémathèque du documentaire at the Centre Pompidou in 2024 as part of the “Contre-chants, luttes collectives, films féministes” program.
In the 1980s, she discovered the work of Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki and decided to make films. She took part in two Super 8 film workshops run by Katerina Thomadaki, Miroirs [Mirrors] and Corps et mouvement [Body and Movement]. In the 1990s, she helped the artist duo organize the “Cinéma vidéo ordinateur” festivals at the Vidéothèque de Paris as part of Astarti for Women’s Audiovisual Art.
In the 2000s, she created several performances for the French Cinematheque. Seated with her projectors among the audience, she projects her own films as expanded cinema performances. Sound, in vivo projection, the space of the cinema and the audience become cinematographic components in which presence is revealed. She also works as a programmer and runs film workshops for a wide range of audiences.
Ana Bordenave
Ana Bordenave is an art historian and critic. From 2018 to 2021, she was an associate researcher at the BnF [The National French Library], focusing on the work of experimental artists and filmmakers Maria Klonaris and Katerina Thomadaki. She also reseached the review Sorcières [Witches](1975-1982), part of which was digitized on the FemEnRev platform. Since 2016, she has contributed to various cultural and artistic media, and she has been the communications manager of Galerie Jocelyn Wolff. In 2024, she produced a study on the careers of women and gender minority artists for the Fédération des arts plastiques in Brussels [Federation of Visual Arts in Brussels] (to be published), and she works with AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research & Exhibitions, for which she is programming a series of events on Lesbian Presence(s) in art history.
She is currently president of the association Contemporaines, which fights against gender discrimination in contemporary art in France.
