ON DARKNESS

In a personal mediation on her journey to Bolivia, Argentinian-born Bernaus re-flects on the history of ethnography and the study of other cultures. Originally from South America, but assuming the role of an outsider, an academic, and thus deeming herself a “double agent,” Bernaus has created a film that occupies a liminal space between fact and fiction, critiquing the notion of the researcher as an unbiased observer and truth teller. Questioning our relationship to the earth, Bernaus implicates the viewer in Bolivia’s water crisis, stating that there is “no way of living without transforming or altering our surroundings. We humans are com-plicated creatures; we destroy in order to survive.”

Karen Greenwalt, curator of the interdisciplinary exhibition “All have the same breath”. Gallery 400, Chicago, January 18-March 9, 2019.