Sekula beyond Sekula: Film by Jaakko Pallasvuo

Jaakko Pallasvuo
Bridge Over Troubled Water, 2016. 28 minutes.
BLUE, 2016. 5:43 minutes.
None of the World’s Futures, 2016. 7:37 minutes.

Bridge Over Troubled Water, by Jaakko Pallasvuo and MSL, BLUE, and None of the World’s Futures, by Jaakko Pallasvuo are three films all produced in 2016 exploring different aspects of Pallasvuo’s multifaceted practice including environmentalism, queer subjectivity, and institutional critique. First in Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon and Garfunkel travel through time and discuss the ontological and political implications of climate change through various moments in time. Then in Blue, Pallasvuo makes a narrated ode to the color and its representation of sadness. The film takes both its name and its form from Derek Jarman’s last feature from 1993, while simultaneously referencing Eiffel 65’s 1999 eurodance hit Blue (Da Ba Dee). None of the World’s Futures chronicles the artist’s trip to the Venice Biennale in 2011. In the film, Pallasvuo resuscitates this footage (shot five years earlier) into a half-celebratory yet ultimately critical analysis of the decadency of the art world and the role of friendship among outsiders.