Passagens 1

[Passages] 1974
Video, magnetic tape, 1⁄2” . B+W 
Sound : footsteps, ambient street noise
Duration : 9’
Camera : Jom Tob Azulay

Summary
Anna Bella Geiger slowly ascends various flights of stairs, inside and outside, in her Rio neighborhood.

Overview
The repeated action is mesmerizing but leads to nothing. In the final scenario, she crisscrosses a grand staircase at the institute for the blind. She moves from the corners and walks up diagonally, bottom to top.

Historical note
Initially, Geiger suppressed the full-length version she felt might tempt censorship. In it, during the final minutes, she echoes the path of her action with two strips of dark fabric laid on to the steps in an X, to underscore collective exasperation with the authoritarian regime. The inclusion of the latter accounts for a variance in running times between the two versions.

Anna Bella Geiger reflects

In Passages I, I chose three staircases here in Rio de Janeiro, the first of these was inside an art nouveau building that was going to be demolished. I climb those stairs three times ’emulating’ a looping system. That is, I actually climb the same staircase three times repeatedly. The second staircase is one located in the Catete neighborhood, at Rua Santo Amaro, 35. This staircase (to this day) connects the residents of the houses up there and has existed for over a hundred years […]. I lived in one of those houses next to the staircase. It has more than 160 steps, which I climb in that video.

The third one is in the building of the Benjamin Constant Institute, the headquarters of the institute/school for the blind, it is on Av. Pasteur, In Praia Vermelha. I chose it because of the absurdity of this being the building that harbors the blind. […]

The sound recorded in this video, Passages I, captures the three environments. In the first of them, the sound of the footsteps was what interested me. Also because the three climbs actually do happen. On the steps of Santo Amaro Street you hear a child shouting a few words as I pass by their house in the favela. On the Institute’s stairs you

can hear the traffic on the street.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: entrevistas brasileiras. Vol. I, 2019. (pp. 181-182)