Lasting Forever

01.03.–18.04.2022
extended until 24.04.
Online Video Screening

Curated by
Emma Hedditch

With contributions by
Dana Bishop-Root, Ginger Brooks-Takahashi, Hyojee Choi, Melissa Dyne, Emma Hedditch, Henriette Heise, Andrea Hufner, Nicole Lowe, Khaela Maricich, Ethan Means, Lydia Okrent, Lilia Paskewicz, Eileen Simpson, Mariana Valencia



The shots in Lasting Forever are placed alongside each other in the sequence because they don’t have a beginning or an end, in the sense that completed video works do. The frame and its duration are what we see and are the video program. These and other constraints are linked together in their being placed alongside each other. All of the sounds are from the world of the image, which includes a home office, a live music venue, a bathroom, a store being renovated, a kitchen, an exterior of a corner store, a traffic intersection all either in North America or Northern Europe. The viewer is encouraged to watch the program alongside their own music so as to link them further and make some magic.

Figures enter the frame and leave it, from side to side, and sometimes come towards the camera obscuring the lens. There are diagonal compositions, close-ups, long takes, jump cuts, refracted light, focus shifts, static and moving shots. You might notice some costumes or props that are time-specific, which in addition to the image quality give an indication of what era they are made in. The videos span 22 years, from 1999 to 2021. That is roughly the same period of time I have known Jimmy Robert, whose exhibition this program was made for. It is not a reflection of that relationship, but it is a staying in character, staying in the character of our capacity and incapacity to relate to each other, it’s both. Like spatial and temporal continuity in a narrative film, which can only be maintained with a great deal of organising, consideration, and trickery. And then sometimes we choose discontinuity and less force.

Some of the videos were made as correspondences in response to an instruction (which is similar to how a lot of film and video works are directed) or a request to record something motivated by a particular action, such as video somebody doing something for the first time, video a person at a computer, make a video motivated by light or scale. I have tended to notice looks between people, and reactions to something happening inside and off-screen.

The videos are gathered from a relatively accessible place to me, from tapes and files that I have and digitised from these tapes. They are loosely authored between the camera person and the subject. I am describing them as such, so as to not inflate them or change their status or take them out of time, but I understand that any such reframing will inevitably do that.

Text: Emma Hedditch

Emma Hedditch (geb. 1972, Großbritannien) lebt in New York. Hedditch konzentriert sich auf die tägliche Praxis, die Materialität und die Verbreitung von Wissen als politische Aktion. Hedditch war Mitglied der Cinenova Working Group (1999-heute), der Copenhagen Free University (2001-2008), No Total, einem Ort für Performance (2012-2017), und Coop Fund (2018-heute). Hedditch unterrichtet Film und Video am College of Staten Island und an der Cooper Union.