Prisoner Pair

In 2008 Dean was commissioned to make a work in or about the historically contested region of Alsace-Lorraine, and she responded with a type of still life: a close-up study of two bottled pears suspended in schnapps and subtly decaying in sunlight. The film’s title depends on an obvious pun but also on the name, poire prisonnière, given to such novelty liquors as are still produced in Alsace, parts of Switzerland and the Black Forest. The work itself is an intimate and almost whimsical portrait of two bodies (two territories of sorts) that rhyme with or mirror one another and seethe quietly with life even as they’re immured behind glassy frontiers. – Brian Dillon, Guardian