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pressing

Stephanie Barber

2025 00:03:18 United StatesEnglishColorStereo4:316mm film
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Description

a woman washes her hair in the kitchen sink while telling her friend about a memory of sitting in a bathtub and watching her aunt get ready to go out. 

a narrative fragment, 
a very short story,
a performance and exercise in the prosaic as mythologized through memory.
concision and the infinite that is always entwined with remembering and forgetting.

the pressing of pubic hair against nylon
the pressing of fingers on fruit
the pressing of an image of 
womanhood
sexuality
pleasure
on the young psyche of the character in the film. 

the pressing of light on photosensitive chemicals. 
minerals i’ve exposed. 

light struck is a phrase i like to think about. the bearable violence.

- Stephanie Barber

About Stephanie Barber

Stephanie Barber is an American writer and artist. She has created a poetic, conceptual and philosophical body of work in a variety of media. Many of her videos are concerned with the content, musicality and experiential qualities of language. They ferry viewers through philosophical inquiry with the unexpected oars of play, emotionalism, story, and humor. Many balance several seemingly unrelated concepts––subtly suggesting or brazenly demanding a focused and imaginative reception. Many create gently complex, emotional studies. Others are funny; a sorrowful sort of funny. There are videos of obsessive observing and ambient sounds; small artificial fireworks, animals, and silence. They are tightly wound, dense, and light simultaneously.

Barber's films and videos have has been screened nationally and internationally in solo and group shows at MOMA, NY, The Tate Modern, London; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Paris Cinematheque; The Walker Art Center, MN; MOCA Los Angeles, The Wexner Center for Art, OH, among other galleries, museums and festivals. Her essays, stories and poems have been published in books, magazines and online journals.