A Few Spaces In Between

Recurring abstract and microscopic structures appear in this film that Padgett compiled from found footage for the exhibition Innocents Abroad—Made for Arolsen in Schloss Bad Arolsen. She used material culled from educational films produced during the ’60s and ’70s from the educational film archive at the University of Paderborn. Padgett worked with such source material as How Does the Wind Come to Be?, How to Lay a Table and Skin: Our Vulnerable Protective Barrier. Scenes of work on an assembly line or experiments in scientific labs reference a technical/scientific modernity. The film images reveal a historical dimension, while introducing layers of referential meaning and placing the film in relationship to our understanding of what we consider to be state of the art.