Une journée avec Madame Akarova

For this video work, made in 1989, during their studies at Sint-Lukas University College of Art and Design in Brussels, Jurgen Persijn and Ana Torfs worked together for the first time. As they were assigned to make a “video portrait” of someone, they chose Akarova, whose exhibition they had seen in 1988 in les Archives d’Architecture Moderne in Brussels. Akarova was already 84 years old when Ana Torfs and Jurgen Persijn paid her a “studio visit”. In this short film, in a style reminding of silent movies, Torfs & Persijn evoke a day with Akarova, in which they feature themselves.The original U-Matic master being completely oxidized, Persijn & Torfs where happy to recently discover a VHS copy of this work, which turned out to be in fairly good condition.