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Exhibitions The Memory Thief by Beina Xu

September 10 - October 6, 2018 Project Space One

  • In 1987, Beina Xu’s newly immigrated parents totaled their Toyota Corolla in a roadside ditch in Rochester, NY. She was a baby in China then. An old Italian couple was the first on the scene; Jean and Frank Basta, lifelong residents of Dansville, revived her parents with shelter, food, and another car. Since then, the Bastas have been a second family—and Rochester a separate homeland, tethered to their lives by that near-fatal swerve.

    But there is no archival record of this defining moment in their family history. So: Xu wants to create one, weaving their own VHS tapes with found footage from the VSW Film Archive—layering a real narrative with “false” artifacts, reconstructing an architecture of memory. By re-sculpting the sensorial landscape of that moment, pregnant with the potential for tragedy, Xu challenges the process and the tools we use for constructing personal and collective histories.

    Born in Beijing and raised in the United States, Beina Xu is a visual anthropologist, writer, and filmmaker based in Berlin. Her work is predominantly concerned with the role of archival material within historiography and narrative construction, as well as memory and migration.

  • Support for this project came from the Max and Marian Farash Foundation, Joy of Giving Something, and the New York State Council on the Arts Visual Arts program.

     

Visual Studies Workshop

31 Prince Street
Rochester, New York 14607
Phone (585) 442-8676
Fax (585) 442-1992

© Visual Studies Workshop 2022

  • About
    • About VSW
    • Visit
    • Facebook
    • VSW Instagram
    • Twitch
    • VSW News
    • Join our Mailing List!
  • Support VSW
    • Membership & Donations
  • VSW Salon
    • VSW Salon Spring 2022
    • VSW Salon Fall 2021
    • Community Curator Program
  • Publications
    • VSW Press
    • Pub Fair
    • afterimage
    • Bookstore
  • Collections
    • Search Photography Collections
    • Search The Joan Lyons Independent Press Archive
    • Watch Portable Channel Videos
  • Residency
    • Project Space Residency
    • Exhibitions
  • Education
    • MFA Program
    • Alumni
    • Workshops
  • News
    • VSW Email Newsletter Archive
New York State Council on the Arts

Thank you to our recent supporters:

The New York State Council on the Arts, Joy of Giving Something, The Max and Marian Farash Foundation, Monroe County NY, and The Phillip and Edith Leonian Foundation