The agency of absence

Matt Freedman, a celebrated multimedia performance artist, lived with a terminal illness from 2011. He collaborated with filmmakers John Bruce and Pawel Wojtasik in a series of experiments using VR spaces, engaging in creative investigations up until two weeks before his death in October 2020. Freedman also appears as one of five main characters in the film End of Life, a feature-length documentary.

For this project, I intended to shoot his work, which is left as it was at his place known as “the Synagogue”, which had been his laboratory, performance stage and gallery all these years. As I was preparing to explore and experience the synagogue, I had a vague idea of the subject matter but was unsure of what I wanted to convey by shooting the site. The time spent at the site and the conversation with Jude, Freedman’s widow, made me experience the notion of absence and presence. It made me think of why I hold on to objects to remember those that have passed and that I miss. I know the objects mean something to me, but can we know someone else through the objects/art they leave behind?

I personally didn’t know Freedman and didn’t already have an established relationship and rapport with his wife. I got to know them through my conversations with filmmakers who witnessed lived experiences of Freedman, the ways their collaboration evolved over time, and how Freedman used to talk about his illness through his performances as well as watching him working in a virtual space. Having experienced that, I was able simultaneously to feel his absence and presence through seeing his live self and everything else he did when he was still living. It made me think how the objects hold a space and can tell a story as well as mean something to those who experienced a relationship with Freedman but also to people who didn’t know him, creating an emotional connection.

I know that absences exist everywhere and as I was visiting the site, it was a reminder of how these materialize through the presence of an object, in the present, regardless of the personal connections through the memory of the person. As I was moving around, reading the place and sounds, I felt the absence materialized through the presence of his artifacts although his trace and essence is still present.

The Synagogue, as brought to life by Jude, has been somewhat frozen in time. While its surroundings have changed and the building itself have been evolved from a space of worship into an art studio and open for new interpretations, the site has remained true its origins, as if preserved to freeze the memory of the place.

The scenes of the film will take the viewer through the physical space, the objects and the conversation with Jude, with the aim to create spaces and moments for reflection and observation. By alternating between moments of silence with moments of conversation, the hope is to recreate an experience of contemplation and interrogation around the notion of absence – presence that lingers beyond the film in a similar way that I experienced while I was shooting for this project.