Ingel Vaikla, Moi aussi, je regarde, 2024

This online screening coincides with ‘EXPLO #4 – a sense of place’ – a group exhibition organised by Needcompany that explores the spatiality of the Gosset building through various sensory interventions. As part of this exhibition, Blue Screen has been invited to curate a special screening programme that navigates through various physical and virtual environments, exploring spatiality through time and memory.

Ingel Vaikla is a visual artist and filmmaker based between Tallinn and Brussels, working with 16mm film, video and found footage. Her artistic practice investigates the representation of architecture in photography and film, while exploring how both people and the camera engage with built environments. She is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD in Audiovisual and Visual Arts at PXL-MAD / UHasselt.

As part of Blue Screen’s film programme for EXPLO #4, we are pleased to present Vaikla’s film ‘Moi aussi, je regarde’ (2024), along with an accompanying Q&A, which will be available online throughout November. The film explores La Unité d’Habitation, a modernist residential building in Marseille developed by the Atelier Le Corbusier between 1947 and 1952.

BS: (Blue Screen) The exhibition ‘EXPLO #4 – a sense of place’ unfolds as a journey through the architecture of the Gosset site and MILL, the workspaces of Needcompany in Brussels. The diverse spatial interventions by invited artists encourage us to reflect on how we experience and navigate a building – through sight, sound, memory, and other senses. This approach seems to resonate with your work in Moi aussi, je regarde and many of your other films. Could you start by sharing what drew you to explore architecture in your practice, and how you approach this subject within your films?

IV: (Ingel Vaikla) I’ve been exploring the relationship between architecture and the moving image for the past ten years, trying to understand what attracts me to this subject. Only recently, while working on a practice-based PhD, have I gained a clearer understanding of my focus on modernist architecture and how I actually engage with space. I believe my interest stems from growing up in Estonia, surrounded by Soviet architecture. Although I was born after the fall of the Soviet Union, reading the cityscape became a way for me to understand the past, enriched by stories from my grandparents and parents.

There’s a strong reaction to Soviet architecture in Estonia, which led to me becoming interested in how architecture symbolises certain ideas and evokes deep thoughts and emotions. I began to look beyond the physical and functional aspects, realizing that architectural forms hold multiple layers – not just formal, but also social, psychological, historical, and memorial. Recognising these layers made me want to explore them further, and I found film to be a beautiful medium for this, as film is also a representation of a gaze.

In my practice, I try to translate architecture – with its social, psychological, and memorial layers—into a cinematic form. I prefer the term ‘translation’ over ‘representation’ because representation implies an objective capture, which I don’t really believe is possible.

BS: What inspired you to work with La Unité d’Habitation in Moi aussi, je regarde?

IV: I was excited because I had been working on various modernist architectural sites, which, while not particularly famous, were still charged in a certain way. Suddenly, I found myself in front of a building that’s a key reference for modernist architecture.

Initially, I felt a bit apprehensive about what I could contribute to the vast body of work on Le Corbusier and the existing representations of his buildings. There was also the added complexity of engaging with Le Corbusier himself; until then, I hadn’t worked much with architects. However, with La Unité d’Habitation, it was hard to avoid considering who Le Corbusier was and what his values were. His principles are deeply embedded in the architecture. For example, the building’s modular design is heavily influenced by a more male-centric perspective.

I wanted to adopt a critical approach, but I must admit that on each visit to the building, I found it to be a sympathetic, playful space, one that fosters a sense of community, offers democratic views of the sea, and creates a dialogue between the landscape and the architecture. Through interviews with the residents, it was clear they had a strong affection for the building. I felt torn between wanting to avoid simply praising it and questioning Le Corbusier’s values.

Ultimately, my approach was to examine the legacy of architectural representation associated with Le Corbusier. He was also a photographer and took control of how his buildings were represented, often restricting the freedom of other photographers to represent them. I saw this as an opportunity to document the building in a way that reflected a more feminine experience, focusing on inhabiting the space rather than just capturing it.

BS: On this note, can you tell us about the title of the film and where it comes from?

IV: The title Moi aussi, je regarde roughly translates to ‘I am looking too’ or ‘I am looking back.’ It’s inspired by Agnès Varda, who said that a woman’s first feminist gesture is to recognize, ‘I am being looked at, but I am looking too.’ This acknowledges the agency and power to look back at the world.

I wanted to play with this idea and make a film that wasn’t strictly a representation of the building. There isn’t a single typical shot of the building as you might find online. Instead, the film focuses on the inner experience of exploring the space from within and emphasises looking out at the surrounding landscape. In this way, I wanted to play with the idea of the building as a woman who has the agency not just to be looked at but to actively look as well.

BS: How do you engage with a space before and during making a film?

IV: To truly understand a space or a place, I think it’s essential to spend time there and really immerse myself in it. I spend time walking around, observing the seasonal cycles, and noting the changes between day and night. The way light shifts and moves is crucial for my understanding – not just of how the architecture functions, but how these elements interact within the space. For instance, the particular sounds of the wind at La Unité d’Habitation create a unique ‘voice’ for the building, producing unusual whistling sounds as it moves through the glass and concrete – details that you often don’t notice at first.

Working with the people who inhabit the space is also essential. This adds a third layer to the dialogue: if architecture represents history and the camera embodies a subjective gaze, then people bridge these spaces.

BS: How do you perceive the relationship between film and architecture in your work?

IV: In a way, I’m arguing against representation, opposing the idea of reducing architecture to something that is purely visual. Although I’m a filmmaker, I sometimes wonder why I didn’t choose another medium. But I enjoy this challenge. I used the term ‘translation’ before, and I’d like to elaborate a bit on that.

I became interested in the discourse around language translation through conversations with my grandmother, Tiiu Kokla. She is 92 and has been working as a translator for 70 years, editing and translating foreign literature published in Soviet Estonia. She often dealt with censorship and ethical issues in translation. She emphasises that an overemphasis on accuracy can be limiting, as poetry exists in the spaces between words, not in exact translations.

She often dealt with various issues of censorship and ethical dilemmas imposed by the Soviet regime. She really loves to talk about problems with language, and through our conversations, I realised that I often negotiate similar questions. One of her main arguments focuses on the emphasis on accuracy in translation, which she sees as a trap within the discourse. The process of translation often starts with finding the meaning in another word, but she argues that poetry can be lost when translating word by word. The poetry isn’t in the individual words, it’s in the spaces between them.

I’m drawn to the idea that translation is inherently bound to fail, and I find beauty in this gap where failure resides. It’s a delicate space where I can’t impose my words without losing their essence. My grandmother also talks a lot about other qualities of words, like the ‘colour of a word’ – a term that expresses the textures and contextual nuances of language. Sometimes, you choose a less accurate word that better conveys the atmosphere. Similarly, in working with images, I do not aim to capture architecture in its totality, but I try to unpack its many dimensions – sensory, historical, social, and mental.

BS: The exhibition’s title, ‘a sense of place’, is drawn from Steven Feld and Keith Basso, describing how places are ‘known, imagined, yearned for, held, remembered, voiced, lived, contested, and struggled over.’ As a migrant in Brussels, what gives you a sense of place in the city?

IV: My initial reaction to Brussels was one of surprise. Coming from Estonia – a small, predominantly white country with a strong national identity shaped by Soviet colonisation – I found the narrative in Brussels difficult to grasp and even intimidating at first. Over time, however, I came to appreciate this complexity as one of the city’s greatest strengths. I like to think of it this way: Since no one is truly ‘at home’ here, everyone is at home.

In places with a strong sense of identity, I often feel I don’t fit in due to dominant national or other strong narratives. In contrast, I see Brussels as a gap or a void – a space where people can project themselves.