About the program
Join Alliance Française de Chicago in welcoming French filmmaker and visual artist Theodora Barat for a presentation of three of her documentary shorts: Or anything at all except the dark pavement; Pay Less; and Off Power.
Barat will then be joined in conversation by Amy Beste, Director of Public Programs and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Film, Video, New Media, & Animation at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After the program, guests will be welcomed to a reception where they can enjoy a complimentary glass of French wine and have the opportunity to speak with the artist.
Théodora Barat is currently in residence at Villa Albertine Chicago working on Superform, a project that explores the sculptural and commemorative manifestations of the December 1942 chain reaction in Chicago Pile-1—a nuclear reactor located in the basement of the University of Chicago—through photography, sculpture, and film. With Superform, she examines Chicago’s unique nuclear legacy and confronts the peak of American power and its utopian representations, resonating with the city’s modernist architecture. The aim is to question their resurgence in our present. Her films Pay-Less Monument (2018) and Off Power (2021) are devoted to the destructive exploitation of chosen territories and the intertwining of capitalism and energy.