As part of the her first personal show in Italy promoted by MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna from 28th October 2012 to 6th January 2013 in the exhibition spaces of the Permanent Collection, the South African artist, Bridget Baker presents the first preview of the two-channel video work entitled The Remains of the Father – Fragments of a Trilogy (Transhumance) (2012, 24').
The event fits into the Visual Arts programme of the tenth edition of Gender Bender Festival (Bologna, 27 October - 3 November 2012).

Influenced by her biography as a white South African living there during and after Apartheid, Bridget Baker focuses her investigation on subtle dynamics of power and domination between peoples, questioning the legitimacy of official historical reconstruction by calling the codes of their interpretation into question.

The Remains of the Father – Fragments of a Trilogy (Transhumance), from which the exhibition curated by Elisa Del Prete takes its name, represents the first part in a trilogy in which the artist undertakes a reflective and imaginative journey through a subject that has still been not received enough investigation, such as the Italian colonial history in Eritrea during the Fascist regime.

The work is the result of a residence programme undertaken by Bridget Baker in Bologna during the course of 2012 on the invitation of Nosadella.due – Independent Residency for Public Art, during which the artist developed her project based through various explorations of Italy's archives and libraries, meetings with historians, cinema experts, psychologists, sociologists, architects and exponents of eritrean community in Italy.

The extraordinary wealth of the materials collected suggested to the artist the idea of a visual narrative in which elements of fiction blend with traces of a real but forgotten history. Allowing to experience the threshold of reality and imagination, document and interpretation, the work questions the observer’s gaze concerning the role of imaginative knowledge in the perception of facts.

The press conference of the exhibition takes place on Thursday 25 October at 11 am. Will be present Gianfranco Maraniello (Director MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna), Elisa Del Prete (Curator), Bridget Baker.

The exhibition opens to the public on Saturday 27th October 2012 at 5 pm, with free entry to the Permanent Collection from 5 pm to 8 pm.

During a meeting with Bridget Baker to be held in the MAMbo Conference Room at 6 pm on Sunday 28th October, other video works previously unseen in Italy will be presented, illustrating the complexity of the artist’s work on the border between collective legacy and private imagery.