This, too, was a gift
by Janos TedeschiResearch & project
This, too, was a gift is a research rooted in the artist’s personal process of transformation. Underpinned by analytical psychology, the theory of complex trauma, writings on film, trauma and the representation of the unrepresentable, the research explores how filmmaking can be a tool to foster and chronicle this multi-layered journey. Here, particular emphasis is placed on making visible — and empirically experiential — the impact of past traumatic events on the present moment.
Processes of transformation are intricate and unfold in numerous ways and on manifold levels. Should one wish to do justice to the totality of one’s experience (of transformation) in or on film, the artist contends, it is insufficient to document one’s physical life and interactions with the tangible world. One must attempt to capture with equal attention — as well as translate and render — one’s psycho-emotional and visceral states of being, one’s inner worlds of images as well as one’s dreams.
Examined through the general methodology of the “fragment” (fragmentation of the self being a hallmark of trauma) and articulated through a range of (audiovisual) forms — from essay documentary and experimental associative images, music compositions and poetry, to staging with actors—the resulting collection of fragments begins to create a complex and layered cinematic tapestry in which objects, experiences, and notions can be traced and begin to “make sense” beyond simple narratives, rational understanding, and everyday representation. This, too, comprises the artist’s attempt to arrive at a “holistic” documentation, as well as an outer and inner journey, of that transformation. Arising from this research is a full-length documentary, currently in development.
Janos Tedeschi
Janos Tedeschi (b. 1983) is an artist, thinker, and seeker. A citizen of the world with Swiss and Italian heritage, he was educated in several countries (including Germany, England, Thailand) and has continued to bloom where he is planted throughout research stays in several others around the globe (e.g. France, Indonesia, USA), leading to novel, complementary, and often contradictory ways of thinking and being.
Now based in Amsterdam, he has found himself comfortably not at home there while thriving in a locus of creation. Janos studied composition, gemological science, and process design prior to his current interdisciplinary film work. His most notable screen works thus far include the feature documentaries “No Way To Heaven” (2008), about people living on light, and “Inventing the In-between” (2019), with and about the pioneering actress Miriam Goldschmidt and her decadeslong collaboration with theatre vanguard Peter Brook.
Since 2007, in a parallel creative realm, Janos has honed his expertise in historical jewellery design. Intrigued by the button as a socio-cultural signifier, he set out to reinvigorate the age-old craft of button-making; his iconic jewellery designs have become treasured objects among art collectors.
Janos is an active member of the Analog Sea offline community of artists and thinkers and co-edits the award-winning literary journal The Analog Sea Review. Impassioned and bewildered by the vital depths, dreams, and the transcendental, Janos looks at life as a mystery and the central leitmotif of all his creative practice is his probing approach into worlds beyond the visible, tangible and effable realms – both within and without himself.