Our City Dreams

Filmed over the course of two years, the movie “Our City Dreams” is an invitation to visit the creative spaces of five women artists, each of whom possesses her own energy, drive and passion. These women, who span different decades and represent diverse cultures, have one thing in common beyond making art: the city to which they have journeyed and now call home – New York. The artists profiled are Nancy Spero, who was at the forefront of the feminist movement of the late 50s and 60s and whose work continues to question the polemics of sexual identity and warfare; Marina Abramovic, a pioneer of performance art who uses her own body as a canvas to respond deeply to contemporary cultural issues; Kiki Smith, who addresses philosophical, social and spiritual aspects of the human body through work that incorporates glass, plaster, ceramic, bronze and paper; Ghada Amer, who paints erotic canvases in traditional needle and thread and who refuses to bow to the puritanical elements of Western and Islamic culture and “institutionalized feminism”; and Swoon, one of New York’s most promising emerging artists, whose arresting and fugitive street art transmits the pulse of urban life. Director Chiara Clemente combines an intimate style of documentary filmmaking with the ephemera of city life surrounding each woman and the work she creates. The documented year held many triumphs and challenges for each of the participating artists, and the audience will catch a glimpse into the processes of creation and inspiration. Chiara Clemente has captured many moments in these artists’s lives, including Swoon’s first solo exhibition at Deitch Projects in New York, Ghada Amer’s return to her Egyptian homeland, Kiki Smith’s traveling retrospective, Marina Abramovic’s weeklong series of performances at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Nancy Spero’s preparations of a new piece for the 2007 Venice Biennale. Stylistically, the film will have the feeling of a textured collage that will be the culmination of the director’s collaboration with the artist. Ultimately, “Our City Dreams” intends to bring a unique cultural and artistic experience to viewers and provide a testimony to the need to preserve great art and artists.