Body of War, 2010

Isabel Rocamora - Edinburgh, UK

Video Installation

Body of War reflects on how a man becomes a soldier through the relentless repetition of acts of violence. What happens to the psyche as it learns to transgress social principles and integrates the willingness to kill?

Set in the geography of the Normandy Landings and punctuated by testimonies of retired and serving soldiers, a mise-en-scène of visceral hand-to-hand combat is gradually deconstructed. The viewer is invited to engage in the relationship between human intimacy and the brutality of war choreography.

Body of War is as much an ode to the human inside the soldier as a questioning of military structures.

Isabel Rocamora is a British-Spanish artist filmmaker whose work examines the performative language of human gesture and its relationship to individual and cultural identity. In recent practice, her interest in the ontology of authority has lead to mise-en-scène exploring themes such as: the exile of the self, our existential attachment to land and landscape and the intimacy of violence. She is currently preparing a new work set in Jerusalem.

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Fort York Visitors Centre

250 Fort York Boulevard

This project is indoors.