Maija Blåfield’s The Fantastic (2020) will be presented in the 19th Videonale exhibition, taking place in Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany, from March 31 to May 14 2023.

The Fantastic is a film about encountering the unknown and the relationship between imagination and reality. The film is built on interviews with exiled North Koreans, who describe what they imagined the outside world to be like, based on their experiences of watching smuggled western fiction films. Alternating documentary footage and visual effects, the film raises the question of how reality is defined and what we wish to believe in. The Fantastic reverses the set-up where westerners are peeping in on the everyday life of the closed-off state. In this film, it is the North Koreans who direct their curiosity at the outside world and imagine what life in Western countries is like.

Maija Blåfield (b. 1973) is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist and film director. Her cinematic works navigate the grounds between experimental film and documentary film. In addition, Blåfield also works with photography and writing, among other media. Blåfield’s works typically address the ambiguity of reality, experiencing our everyday life differently, and the human relationship with the environment. Her works have been presented in Finland and internationally, in art museums and galleries, as well as at film festivals and on television. Blåfield was awarded the Finnish state award for media art in 2014 and was nominated for the prestigious Ars Fennica award in 2017.

Videonale, March 31 to May 14 2023, Bonn, Germany

More information: Videonale

AV-arkki has promoted and distributed Finnish media art since 1989. AV-arkki’s promotional efforts have made the artists’ participation in this event possible.