Mario Pfeifer
Goethe/Gasworks Residency 2013

Mario Pfeifer’s work explores representational structures and conventions in the medium of film, in locations ranging from Mumbai to California to the Western Sahara. In London, he worked on his video project “Conversation Piece (Western Sahara)”.

Conceiving each project out of a specific cultural situation, Mario Pfeifer usually researches social-political backgrounds and weaves further cross-cultural art historical, filmic and political references into a richly layered practice, ranging from film and video installations to photographs and text installations. Often, Pfeifer collaborates on publications that reconsider these projects, offering research materials and critical investigations by writers and thinkers of related fields, concerning issues suggested in his projects for a wider social-political discussion.
 
During his Gasworks residency, Mario Pfeifer worked on his project “Conversation Piece (Western Sahara)”, in which he explores the struggle for self-determination and freedom by the Saharawis since the Moroccan occupation in 1974. Since 2012, Mario Pfeiffer had been travelling to the Western Sahara region for different video productions. In London, the artist continued his research about the region. With the help of translators and graphic designers, he put different sets of economic statistics of the region into new formats. He also showed photo and video material of his archive, which he presented to the public at the Gasworks Open Studios Weekend. All this served as preparation for the final phase of the project: In November 2013, Mario Pfeifer travelled in the Western Sahara region once more to complete his video production.
 
Bilderstrecke mit Ansichten des Gasworks-Ateliers
 
Mario Pfeifer was born in 1981 in Dresden, Germany. After his studies in Leipzig (HGB) and Berlin (UDK), Pfeifer graduates from Willem de Rooij’s class at Städelschule Frankfurt in 2008. He was a Fulbright fellow in Los Angeles (California Institute of the Arts) in 2008/09. Further grants and projects lead him to Bangkok, Mumbai, Marrakesh, Beirut and New York. Since 2005, his home base is Berlin.
 
See more about his publications, works and installations on his website.
 
The residency took place from August to September 2013.
 
A collaboration between Gasworks and the Goethe-Institut London.

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