Ein Tag und eine Ewigkeit (A day and an eternity)

Date: 2009
Length: 25:00 min.
Format:  16:9
Specification: Black and White, Sound

In her film “A day and an eternity”, Anna Hepp takes a look back over the last days of her grandmother’s 94-year life. The old woman lived alone, and Hepp accompanied her everyday life in the cramped confines of her apartment. In this place, the same gestures and the same routine, which had established themselves over the years, took place every day. Anna Hepp’s black-and-white pictures document the traces of age without impinging upon the old woman’s dignity and independence. The traces are engraved in the sagging skin, the shakiness in her hands and the tiredness in her eyes. The camera concentrates on Dorothea’s body whose movements determine the rhythm of the pictures. In long shots, Hepp makes space so that the apparent triviality of the moment can develop into an entire life story.
During the film, the protagonist asserts her own presence, her voice speaking offscreen, looking back on her life and wondering about the future. “A day and an eternity” functions as a document of an impending farewell, allowing the spectator to take part in those little moments and share in those thoughts of a life drawing inexorably to its close.

TL

Interview:

► 1. Your video has been chosen among over 1700 festival entries to participate in Videonale 13. How central is the video medium to your overall artistic production? Is it complimentary to other media you use or do you work exclusively with video?

First, there is a subject and the medium I’m going to use suits this subject! Some topics are easier to deal with using photography or a book and so I’m not fixed on one medium.

► 2. Is there a particular theme, concept or problem your art addresses the most?

The human being is always a central topic. I’m occupied with very basic subjects i.e. beauty, death or loneliness.

► 3. What artists do you relate to or find significant for your own art-making?

I love the works of Ingmar Bergman, Yongbo Zhao, Roland Topor, Marina Abramović among other artists and filmmakers. But I don't know if I relate to them. I don't relate to anything consciously or knowingly.

► 4. Do you think the video medium can address social or political issues better than other art media?

I don’t think that it addresses it in a better way but in a different one! Like I said, it depends very much on the subject.

► 5. Art can be seen as a mirror that registers and reflects life or as a tool that transforms it. Which of the two positions is close to your own art-making philosophy?

Of course art is for me a kind of self-reflection while doing something. This is very important for me. And it can be a device to visualize this self-reflection, but it doesn’t have to be. Because of this process and work (painting, photography, film, video, book, performance etc) are two different things that are connected but don’t always can or have to be put together!

► 6. How do you understand success in an art-making career?

My personal success: When I can learn something about me or others by doing one of my works. When I learn something about life and when continuously reaching maturity and getting knowledge. When my efforts and my inner struggle get rewarded, because my works stimulate something in other people or sometimes just appeal to them or evoke warmth – that’s a success, too. When I meet people on my way who think me capable, believe in me and support me on my future way.

► 7. What is the most difficult and the most rewarding thing about making art / being an artist?

Most difficult: emotional. Sometimes you have to overcome inner limits. To endure inner pain, anger and loneliness, but to surpass this by working, even just temporarily. Practical: less money.

Most rewarding: gaining perspective and maturity, surpassing anxieties, growing and getting love.

► 8. What are your upcoming projects?

A photographic work about couples – a film about an old man – a video work about creative German women around 30 – an essay about loneliness (to be published as a book – still looking for a publisher!)

► 9. What do you do when you don't make art?

Playing table football, listening to jazz music and taking a bath!