Pablo Pijnappel & Giles Bailey (BR/UK)

°1979 / °1981

The Brazilian artist Pablo Pijnappel is first and foremost a narrator. By juxtaposing words and images, fact and fiction he creates enigmatic stories, which take the form of narrative film and slide projections. In this way he traces the paths of memory, refers to the instability and changeability of history and addresses the many forms and functions of stories in our lives. Pijnappel’s films are influenced by the history of psychoanalysis and are often concerned with the biography of people in his immediate vicinity.

Pablo Pijnappel created The Playmakers with Giles Bailey (UK) °1981

Giles Bailey is a performance artist. He has spent the last few years working on the Talker Catalogue project, a series of revised monologues constructed to challenge the original ‘text’ (story, performance, image, etc.) and reinterpret it by bringing together sources which do not normally belong together. Via text, image, quotation, fragment, footnote and anecdote, Bailey aims to develop performances, which explore such secondary sources as means of investigating the interference, translation and stability of history, character, narrative and resolution.

Nima (2013)

set of 12 postcards

Pablo Pijnappel has written a short story for Contour entitled Nima. It is divided up into instalments that take the form of postcards. Nima is an associative story in which the narrator reminisces to an old acquaintance called Nima. The story starts from an anecdote and seamlessly interweaves the footnotes of history with the big stories. Pijnappel’s works are often autobiographical and most relate to his own family history. Fact and fiction are invariably intertwined.


Produced by Contour 2013.

The Playmakers (2013)

performance and sound installation

In The Playmakers the artists pursue their shared interest in narrative techniques. The performance is the result of a series of five workshops during the summer of 2013, involving the collaboration of inmates from Mechelen prison. It is inspired by the artists’ knowledge of oral historiography, the cut-up technique (whereby a text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text) and experimental theatre practices. The result is a collage of autobiographical stories, a collective oral and unorthodox picture of a work process and coming together of individuals in a context where the individual’s voice is often suppressed and identities become part of a homogenous entity. 

Produced by Contour 2013.

Lucas (2013)

sound installation

For Contour the original 16-mm film Lucas was reworked into a sound work, a monologue recited in a confessional.

Lucas is based partly on Julio Cortázar’s novel Un tal Lucas (A Certain Lucas), which paints a portrait of the protagonist by bringing together separate accounts and diverse events. Pijnappel employs a similar narrative strategy to tell the story of a tourist looking for a toilet in Buenos Aires who gets upset when he enters a French bistro. The story is an account of the associations and dilemmas which come to light in the process. Pijnappel alternates prose and verse to blur the distinction between nonsensical reverie and prophetic revelations. 

Produced by Contour 2013.