Nova Paul: Props and Gestures

Props and Gestures is a study of performances from the extensive Cinescatti archival footage of the Gadini Family Bergamo, Italy, from the 1920s-40s. The films selected portray the intimate family life of plays, games and performance for the camera by the adults of the Gandini family. These films echo the role playing of the Gadini children, who imaginatively play at being grownups in these home movies. These enactments sit alongside another collection of films from the family archives, the Gadini’s in Ethiopia and Cambodia in the1930s. The work contrasts the inner life and construction of the self within the familiar against an outer interface in a colonised territory and reflects on the gestures that provide props for actions and activities, and studies the imagination at work within the home and in far-flung territories.