“Artists must be free from worries of business. War must be impossible.” For Songbook, Mariah Garnett works with the archive of her great-great aunt Ruth Deyo, who lived in Cairo from the 1920s until her death in 1960, and who composed an opera there with the help of a medium. In exchange with a group of artists, Garnett begins to adapt the never-performed piece, which was intended to bring about world peace, for the public. She interweaves footage of the rehearsal process in Los Angeles with excerpts from her previous research trip to Cairo. Between pyramids, a ride on the Nile, glimpses into a spiritual world, and new friendships, the search for a contemporary interpretation of the opera unfolds. Songbook brings together voices from different backgrounds, genders, and genres to create a progressive collaborative blueprint for art-making. 

Program

Mariah Garnett, Songbook, 2024, 55 min
Followed by a conversation between Mariah Garnett and Kathrin Wojtowicz (in English)

Mariah Garnett lives in Los Angeles. Her films and installations deconstruct the conventional hierarchy between filmmaker and subject, a mode that has historically been the purview of directors who possess economic, racial and gender privilege. Recent solo exhibitions and presentations at Contemporary Art Museum Houston (2022); Commonwealth and Council, Los Angeles (2021); Sundance Film Festival (2021); Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery (2019). Furthermore, she is an Assistant Professor of Media at UC San Diego.

Kathrin Wojtowicz is an artist living in Vienna. She is interested in the connections between social conditions, body politics, and media. She has curated film programs for Kunsthalle Bremerhaven and Kunstraum Schwaz. She currently teaches photography and contemporary art at the University of Arts Linz.