July 3, 2020Yu Araki, Bivalvia: Act I, 2017 (courtesy of the artist)
Yu Araki’s Bivalvia Act I showing as part of God’s House Tower’s Beside the Sea: Summer Screenings programme.
We were invited to nominate a film by God’s House Tower in Southampton as part of their Beside the Sea: Summer Screenings programme.
Throughout July, the Summer Screenings programme will explore how artists and filmmakers have been inspired by the sea and its infinite possibilities.
We nominated Japanese artist Yu Araki’s compelling film, Bivalvia: Act I, which combines a real-life story about a young couple who committed double-suicide in the sea between Japan and Korea in 1926, the legend of St. Jacob, French phonetics lesson, and various representations of oysters, a symbol for vanitas.
The film can be watched between 3 – 9 July on God’s House Tower website.
Interviews with some of the artists in Selected X appear below. If you’d like to watch the film programme, click here.
Beverley Bennett, Amine, 2017 (courtesy of the artist)
Beverley Bennett‘s interview (Bennett’s film Amine is in Selected X):
What was it that inspired your film?
In 2016 the pioneering writer Claudia Rankine pronounced that ‘the invisibility of black women was astonishing.’ That year I was approached to apply for a commission based on the Greek tragedy of Philomela. While the myth has several variations, the general depiction is that Philomela, after being raped and mutilated by her sister’s husband, Tereus, obtains her revenge and is transformed into a nightingale, a bird renowned for its song. Because of the violence associated with the myth, the song of the nightingale is often depicted or interpreted as a sorrowful lament. In nature, the female nightingale is actually mute and only the male of the species sings. The project Philomela’s Chorus is a series of short films centring the removal of the voice namely black womxn.
What do you want viewers to take away from your film? (What do you hope audiences feel or understand – how would you like to affect an audience with your work, and in particular this film?)
I would like the audience to listen to the stories and thoughts that are being generously shared by the womxn on screen, especially the poignant moment between the two siblings. That moment highlights, and conveys, the multifaceted complexities that constitute black womxnhood today. Amine attempts to relay a truth. Paying attention to the complexities within the film allows perceptions to be shattered and the nuanced reality to replace them.
What do you think is most urgent to discuss in art and society at the moment? And do you think artists – including yourself – should be engaging in that or those subjects?
The news is more intensely, politically personal today than it has been in a long time. With the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement, the COVID-19 pandemic and the role of art in pre- and post-lockdown society, I see it as the responsibility of an artist to engage with and discuss the possibilities for future-building inherent in this moment of socio-political rupture. As a black woman in the West, I cannot separate my being in the world from this moment of turmoil. There is an air of urgency to this moment of collective grief – whether it comes from one’s normal daily routine having changed dramatically, from the pressures of working from home, from figuring out a new work / life balance to the other end of the spectrum- losing your job, your home, or watching a news report of another black person being murdered at the hands of the police. The personal grief that comes from not being around friends, from losing family members and not being able to grieve properly as we once would, is added to this. It is the artist’s duty to bear witness to this moment.
What inspirations – film, writing or other media – might be interesting for viewers to look at that have informed your work?
I’m inspired by the other artists within the project Philomela’s Chorus – Jay Bernard, NT and Phoebe Boswell.
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Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley, TRANS-PORT ME, 2019 (courtesy of the artist)
Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley‘s interview (Braithwaite-Shirley’s film TRANS-PORT ME is in Selected X):
What was it that inspired your film that is in the Selected 10 programme? (Where did the idea come from, what made you want to make the film?)
At the of making this video I was dealing a lot with being and feeling unsafe in public. At the time and still now I was not at all passing. My thoughts often would dream that I would be allowed to travel in public without having to avoid the stares and insults and general graphic violence. I felt like a demon. That all the power that I had got from living my truth was something others saw as pure evil.
So, this film is part archiving my wish to empower myself while travelling as well as trying to capture what it is like to travel while looking trans.
What do you want viewers to take away from your film? (What do you hope audiences feel or understand – how would you like to affect an audience with your work, and in particular this film?)
I want my trans audience to feel like their experience is heard. So that it will not be forgotten and hopefully this film can hold on to some of it.
I am hoping the karaoke element of the film will make people think about what it means to say some of the words out loud with the identities they themselves have.
What do you think is most urgent to discuss in art and society at the moment? And do you think artists – including yourself – should be engaging in that or those subjects?
The Erasure of Black people. We owe so much of our culture to Black People; to Black women; to Black Trans bodies.
So much has been taken from us and in that processed we are removed from it.
Blackness is often something removed from the things we produced.
We need to stop erasing Black people. STOP ERASING BLACK TRANS PEOPLE. It’s not about making work about it; it’s about listening to what we need. What we say, what we have been saying.
It’s to know that you, the person reading this, has contributed to the erasure of someone else.
It’s about not thinking you can be a hero, that one good deed or thought is enough. It’s about asking what those who have been erased need and trying to help that be delivered. Sometimes that means handing over all aspects to Black People for us to run things ourselves. If you want to champion us it needs to be for us only without anyone else in that equation.
What inspirations – film, writing or other media – might be interesting for viewers to look at that have informed your work?
The game “Magic wand” by TheCatomites
Kodak Black
Travis Alsbanza
EVAN EFEKOYA
EBUN SODIPO
ms.carriestacks
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Rabz Lansiquot, Nyansapo, 2017 – courtesy of the artist
Rabz Lansiquot‘s interview (Lansiquot’s film Nyansapo is in the Selected X programme):
What was it that inspired your film? (Where did the idea come from, what made you want to make the film?)
I made Nyansapo during my MA documentary course in 2017, which was pretty fraught and left me with almost no guidance on technique, or any theory that related to Black filmmakers. Because of that I decided to just use the facilities to make something that felt useful or even just interesting to me so I decided to document my grandma teaching me to cook Jollof rice, mainly so I’d have a document of that process (it’s pretty hard to get perfect, especially for us diaspora kids) but also to ensure there was something documenting my grandma telling her story. I’d recently seen Martina Attille’s Dreaming Rivers for the first time and it inspired me to foreground the experience of a migrant Black woman, who has spent the majority of her life in this country. It just felt right to do it through food and conversation, a ritual my grandma and I used to undertake every Sunday.
What do you want viewers to take away from your film? (What do you hope audiences feel or understand – how would you like to affect an audience with your work, and in particular this film?)
I’m not sure I really had viewers in mind when I made it, but since then I’ve shown it in a number of contexts and the nicest thing has been hearing other people reflect on the legacies of their own elder family members. We so often overlook or take for granted these Black women in our lives, we forget to ask them what they think or how they feel, and we often don’t realise how much they know and have seen, so I guess I hope the film reminds people of that.
What do you think is most urgent to discuss in art and society at the moment? And do you think artists – including yourself – should be engaging in that or those subjects?
I’m profoundly uninterested in work that doesn’t acknowledge the state of our world. I don’t think there’s such thing as being apolitical so I think if artists aren’t exploring politics in some way, it’s an indication of what their politics really are. There’s so much that needs unpacking and dismantling and artists should be at the forefront of imagining and trialling new forms of thinking. My newer work confronts anti-black violence in a way that Nyansapo doesn’t, but I don’t think all artists should make work about that. I think, for some, stepping back and allowing space for other voices to be heard (and paid) is the most radical and necessary thing.
What inspirations – film, writing or other media – might be interesting for viewers to look at that have informed your work?
The writings of Tina Campt, Saidiya Hartman and Dionne Brand inform my work significantly, and the films of Cauleen Smith.
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Jennifer Martin, TEETH, 2019 – courtesy of the artist
Jennifer Martin‘s interview (Martin’s film TEETH is in the Selected X programme):
What was it that inspired your film? (Where did the idea come from, what made you want to make the film?)
Former Home Secretary Amber Rudd wrote, ‘Illegal and would-be illegal migrants and the public…need to know that our immigration system has “teeth”.’ The letter written to the then Prime Minister Theresa May in January 2017, was leaked at the height of reporting on the Windrush Scandal in April 2018 by The Guardian. The language Rudd used seemed eerily fitting, mirroring what it can feel like to be an immigrant in the UK under a system that wants to consume you, churn you up, and spit you out, somewhere, elsewhere.
What do you want viewers to take away from your film? (What do you hope audiences feel or understand – how would you like to affect an audience with your work, and in particular this film?)
There were a lot of things I hoped would be intuited, embodied things that weren’t for every viewer to grasp. I never aim to educate or make an audience understand. One of the broad notions that the work takes as a given is that the immigration system is broken at every level. The system has been augmented in ways that unnecessarily complicate and obfuscate the process. In the case of the spousal visa, immigration ultimately becomes the entanglement of love, power, and administration.
What do you think is most urgent to discuss in art and society at the moment? And do you think artists – including yourself – should be engaging in that or those subjects?
It’s been vital for me to control and consider what framework ‘TEETH’ is included in. For many British people, Brexit was one of the most significant investments and attention paid to migration. The already broken and oppressive immigration system became increasingly unscalable and monetised under Theresa May’s helming of the Home Office from 2010. As much as ‘TEETH’ is about the UK spousal visa, it is also about the shuttering of the post-study visa during May’s tenure. I more generally seek to question citizenship and belonging through a racial lens, as we should all understand that the metric of citizenship is infinitely retractable and chimeric for Black people in particular. The attention paid to Brexit and its incorporation into art world discourse and events cycle is telling in considering how immigration/migration was present in an art context beforehand, and especially the scale of platforming immigration issues, lived impositions, and artists who experience immigration processes.
What inspirations – film, writing or other media – might be interesting for viewers to look at that have informed your work?
The Wellcome Collection exhibition Teeth (2018) provided scope for in-depth study of the history of teeth in the UK, and encounter with the ephemera part and parcel of that history. Equally, the publication The Smile Stealers: The Fine and Foul Art of Dentistry (2017), by Richard Barnet, which inspired the Wellcome Collection exhibition, was a formative source of historical background.
In addition to exploring teeth in the context of British history and hostile policy, my research was equally concerned with the subject of love. What’s Love (or Care, Intimacy, Affection) Got to Do with It? (2017) published by e-flux journal and Sternberg Press was invaluable as a critical source covering a wide range of reflections on the subject of love. For all the variety of expressions and judgments on love, there were gaps between the love I was researched and the love platformed in the publication. I located space and tension within these gaps and to write responsively.
The choreographic process was an intense collaboration between artist/choreographer Alexandra Davenport and me. I compiled a list of choreographic numbers to focus on in terms of style, expression, gesture, and cinematography. It was an assortment of dances from the awkwardness of Save the Last Dance (2001), to the energy of Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers Hellzapoppin’ (1941), the coordination of House Party (1990), and the drama of Dirty Dancing (1987). My favourites included the Top Hat (1935)dance ‘Heaven’ with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and The Band Wagon (1953)‘Girl Hunt Ballet’ with Cyd Charisse and Astaire.
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Tanoa Sasraku, O’ Pierrot, 2019 – courtesy of the artist
Tanoa Sasraku‘s interview (Sasraku’s film O’ Pierrot is in the Selected X programme):
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Rhea Storr, A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message, 2018 – courtesy of the artist
Rhea Storr‘s interview (Storr’s film A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message is in the Selected X programme)
What was it that inspired your film?
A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message was produced in order to explore the political power of carnival and the way in which carnival, a representation of Black culture, circulates within the UK. Carnival is both absorbed into the cultural mainstream and is a form of resistance or affirmation of Caribbean community. I wanted to consider who has power and how forms of control play out through the aesthetics of carnival. The physical occupation of space for instance, is similar to a protest march.In addition, the film is autobiographical- I appear in a costume inspired by Junkanoo, a celebration of the Bahamas. As a mixed-race woman I wanted to question or complicate simplistic understandings of ‘identity’ or ‘Black culture.’ I was frustrated at the ease that works which commodify a monolithic viewpoint of Black culture circulate.
What do you want viewers to take away from your film? (What do you hope audiences feel or understand – how would you like to affect an audience with your work, and in particular this film?)
An open-ended conversation on Black Britishness. More specifically, that rural areas do not solely support a white population. I feature in the film in the Yorkshire countryside where I was raised. I am interested in seeing the image of Black bodies in rural spaces and that by making the film, it subverts the notion of ‘English’ Countryside as a racialised space. More broadly that speaking in terms of Black and white is useful and necessary but sometimes enforces an unhelpful binary. For instance, it is important to note that we follow Mama Dread’s Masqueraders in the film. Mama Dread’s play intensely political themes important to Black community, (here it is Windrush Bacchanal) but their membership has both Black and white members.
A line in the film ‘there is no fact of Blackness’ is a reference to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. The fifth chapter has been translated both as ‘The Lived Experience of the Black Man’ and ‘The Fact of Blackness’. I was interested in the large discrepancy between these two terms and the type of power inherent to an experience treated as fact. In this way the film seeks to show that cultural representation and the physicality of carnival has an important political function that is lived, is experienced, is community forming.
What do you think is most urgent to discuss in art and society at the moment? And do you think artists – including yourself – should be engaging in that or those subjects?
Often the implication of questioning the usefulness or urgency of art as political instrument implies that art cannot be urgent or fulfil some other political goal. Really whether artists can engage with urgent issues depends on the context and purpose of their work. For me, asking how the ‘art world’ might change is a more directed focus. It is important that art institutions and universities produce conditions where Black artists can thrive rather than survive. It is important that we create a discourse around filmmakers’ work whose work might otherwise be marginalised, that Black culture doesn’t take a peripheral place in an artistic canon.
What inspirations – film, writing or other media – might be interesting for viewers to look at that have informed your work?
-Frantz Fanon – Black Skins, White Masks
-Fred Moten – Black and Blur (consent not to be a single being)
-Emily Zobel Marshall, Max Farrar & Guy Farrar, Popular Political Culture and the Caribbean Carnival,
-Angela Chappell, Analysing 43 years of the Arts Council’s funding and supporting of Caribbean Carnival in England,
June 18, 2020Tanoa Sasraku, O’ Pierrot, 2019 (film still) – courtesy of the artist
The Selected programme was established 10 years ago with the aims of supporting artist filmmakers to gain greater visibility and to bring new, diverse moving image work to audiences. Each year the artists who are shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award nominate artists who are earlier in their careers and from those nominations a programme is curated by videoclub and Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN), which is – usually – shown with venues around the UK. This year the programme was shown online between 6 and 12 July; scroll down for the trailer to get a glimpse of the programme.
The nominators for this year’s programme of Selected (and the artists shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2019) are: Cécile B. Evans, Beatrice Gibson, Mikhail Karikis, Hetain Patel, Imran Perretta and Rehana Zaman.
Due to COVID-19 and social distancing – we showed the programme free online in 2020; the programme was available between 6 – 12 July – in the Vimeo player below. The programme was shown in partnership with Fabrica Gallery, Lighthouse, Phoenix, Spike Island and Vivid Projects.
Programme of films (running order)
Sharif Persaud & Tim Corrigan, The Mask, 2017, 3:45 mins
Tanoa Sasraku, O’ Pierrot, 2019, 13 mins
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, TRANS-PORT ME, 2019, 11:49 mins
Rhea Storr, A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message, 2018, 12 mins
Ayo Akingbade, So They Say, 2019, 11 mins
Jennifer Martin, TEETH, 2019, 18:15 mins
Rabz Lansiquot, Nyansapo, 2017, 11 mins
Beverley Bennett, Amine, 2017, 11:29 mins
Selected X trailer:
About the films and artists
Ayo Akingbade, So They Say, 2019
Set in 1985 and the present day, the film explores and reflects on the often forgotten histories of black and brown community struggle in East London. The legacy of community and activist group, Newham Monitoring Project is spotlighted.
Ayo Akingbade works predominantly with moving image, addressing notions of power, urbanism and stance. Interested in the fluid boundaries between the self and the other, she gathers local and cultural experiences in intimate and playful interpretations.
Beverley Bennett, Amine, 2017
Commissioned as part of the Philomela’s Chorus film series in 2017, Amine is best described as a tapestry of voices. The film reveals the multi-faceted and complex experiences of what it is to be a black womxn in the UK today. Featuring testimonies from black womxn all over the country, the stories of family, friends, friends-of-friends and acquaintances from varying backgrounds and age groups are woven together, intricately. The testimonies come from a series of unstructured, conversational and kitchen table interviews organised by artist Beverley Bennett, about societal perceptions on black womxn as racialised bodies, overdetermined from without in the Fanonian sense. When seen together, the fragments of positive and negative encounters and experiences, and the rainbow of emotions expressed, create a story of vulnerability, pain and joy that is at once liberatory and heartbreaking. The film illustrates how, while the black British female experience is varied in many respects, intergenerational trauma caused by over-determination in a society whose biases are slanted against black womxn, remains a constant.
Beverley Bennett is an artist-filmmaker. Her practice revolves around the perpetual possibilities of drawing, performance and collaborative experiments with sound. Bennett’s work has been shown nationally and internationally; venues include the CinemaAfrica Film Festival, Stockholm (2018), Encounters Short Film Festival, Bristol (2017), Wysing Art Centre, Cambridgeshire (2017) Spike Island (2017), New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2016), National Gallery of Jamaica, Kingston (2016), Bluecoat, Liverpool, (2010). Beverley Bennett lives and works in London, and is a studio holder at Kingsgate Workshop and Trust. She received her MA in Fine Art in 2009.
Danielle Braithwaite-Shirley, TRANS-PORT ME, 2019
TRANS-PORT ME is a Karaoke film about trying to remain safe while traveling and failing. It is a recording of how being demonised as a trans body makes you long for safety that always seems just out of reach. A lived experience that makes you long to be able to teleport from location to location to help preserve your life. Originally the video was going to be a film about reclaiming a demonised trans body but instead it failed to do so and fell into questions over what feeling unsafe means.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is an artist working predominantly in animation, sound, performance and Video Games to communicate the experiences of being a Black Trans person. Their practice focuses on recording the lives of Black Trans people, intertwining lived experience with fiction to imaginatively retell Trans stories. Spurred on by a desire to record the “History of Trans people both living and past” their work can often be seen as a Trans archive where Black Trans people are stored for the future.
Throughout history, Black queer and Trans people have been erased from the archives. Because of this it is necessary not only to archive our existence, but also the many creative narratives we have used and continue to use to share our experiences.
Danielle’s work has been shown in Science Gallery, MU, Barbican, Tate ,Les Urbains as well as being part of the BBZ Alternative Graduate Show at the Copeland Gallery.
Rabz Lansiquot, Nyansapo, 2017
“While teaching me how to cook Jollof Rice, my grandmother tells me about her experience back home in Ghana as it became the first African country to gain independence from colonial rule, and her life in the UK since moving to London in the 1960’s. This two-channel film explores family history, race, nation, intergenerational relationships, and the often ignored stories of the African women who have lived the majority of their lives in England.
Nyansapo is the Adinkra symbol represented by the “wisdom knot”, a symbol of wisdom, ingenuity, intelligence and patience.”
Rabz Lansiquot is a filmmaker, programmer, curator, and DJ. Alongside Imani Robinson, they are a member of the artistic and curatorial duo Languid Hands who are currently the Cubitt Curatorial Fellows for 2020-21. They were a leading member of sorryyoufeeluncomfortable (SYFU) collective from its inception in 2014. Rabz was Curator In Residence at LUX Moving Image in 2019, developing a public and educational programme around Black liberatory cinema. Their first solo exhibition where did we land, an experimental visual essay exploring the use of images of anti-black violence in film and media, was on view at LUX in Summer 2019, presented alongside a programme of screenings and a study day. They have put together film programmes at the ICA, SQIFF, Berwick Film & Media Festival and were a programme advisor for London Film Festival’s Experimenta strand in 2019 and are on the selection committee for Sheffield Doc Fest 2020. Rabz is also training to deliver workshops in working with Super 8 and eco-processing at not.nowhere, and is a board member at City Projects.
Jennifer Martin, TEETH, 2019
In ‘TEETH’ an eager couple, Charlotte and Myles are interrogated by two Home Office agents about their spousal visa application. They endure a series of assessments that become progressively performative to attest to the legitimacy and acceptability of their relationship.
‘TEETH’ addresses the entanglement of love, power, and administration in the UK spousal visa process. In January 2017, former Home Secretary Amber Rudd wrote, ‘illegal and would-be illegal migrants and the public…need to know that our immigration system has “teeth”’. Her letter, written to then Prime Minister Theresa May, was leaked in April 2018 amid reporting on the Windrush Scandal. Teeth are the bite of the UK immigration system, its violence and desirous devouring.
Jennifer Martin lives and works in London, UK. Martin’s practice spans artists moving image, photography, and installation. Ongoing themes include the performativity of belonging and the instability of images.Recent solo exhibitions and commissions include TEETH, Primary, Nottingham (2019-20); Channel 6, Turf Projects, London (2019); and Britain Been Rotten, Cypher Billboards, London (2019). Recent screenings include 36 Kasseler Dokfest, Kassel (2019); B3 Biennial, Frankfurt (2019); EMAF No. 32, Osnabrück (2019). She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art (2018) and Slade School of Fine Art (2013). Martin was selected for the 2018 Stuart Croft Foundation Education Award, FLAMIN Fellowship 2019/20, was artist-in-residence at Kingsgate Workshops and selected for Hospitalfield’s Residency 2020. She is a co-director of not/nowhere, an artist workers’ cooperative run by Black artists and artists of colour, focusing on photochemical film, audio, and digital practices.
Sharif Persaud & Tim Corrigan, The Mask, 2017
The Mask is a short film about autism and identity featuring writer and director Sharif Persaud. As he journeys along a coastal footpath, Sharif describes what it means to have autism while all the time wearing his favourite celebrity mask. He finally arrives at his destination where he comes face to face with his alter-ego.
Sharif Persaud has a long association with Project Art Works and has been a key contributor to much of PAW’s recent output, including several film projects. Placing himself at the centre of his work Sharif uses different art forms; video, photography, drawing, painting and printing, to reflect the narrative of his life. Through his work we see the world from his idiosyncratic perspective, the different forces that have impacted him in the past and how these shape his thinking about the future.
Tanoa Sasraku, O’ Pierrot, 2019
Employing the narrative of Pierrot the Clown and the aesthetic of Kenneth Anger’s pioneering avant-garde, queer film Rabbit’s Moon, O’ Pierrot explores the quest for British identity from a lesbian, mixed-race, British perspective.
The life goal of Pierrot Mulatto (played by the artist) is to catch a giant sycamore seed that spins down every day from the arms of Harlequin Jack, a crazed black man in whiteface, driven mad by his own quest for British acceptance. Jack toys with Pierrot throughout the story, performing a satirical essence of white British sensibility whilst referencing early minstrel troupes’ caricatures of the post-slavery, black populace. Mixed-race Pierrot is encouraged to strive for her ‘white potential’ whilst battling rejection, rage, and the bending of time amidst the English countryside.
The story of the black, British experience: one driven by misplaced loyalty, melancholy, and historical reprise stands as a mirror to the traditional tale of Pierrot’s existence under Harlequin’s thumb. This forms the narrative pillar for Sasraku’s semi-autobiographical fairytale, shot on 8mm film, whilst the script is built upon a colliding of verses from the Jim Crow-era song ‘Jump Jim Crow’ and lesser-known passages from the British National Anthem.
Tanoa Sasraku works with themes examining the intersections of her identity as a young, mixed-race, gay woman and the endeavour to draw these senses of self together as one in 21st century England.
Sasraku is based in London, England and her practice shifts between filmmaking and flag-making.
Rhea Storr, A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message, 2018
Celebration is protest at Leeds West Indian Carnival. A look at forms of authority, A Protest, A Celebration, A Mixed Message questions who performs, who spectates and the power dynamics therein. Following Mama Dread’s, a troupe whose carnival theme is Caribbean immigration to the UK, we are asked to consider the visibility of Black bodies, particularly in rural spaces.
Rhea Storr is an artist filmmaker who explores the representation of Black and mixed race cultures. Masquerade as a site of protest or subversion is an ongoing theme in her work. So too, is the effect of place or space on cultural representation. On occasion she draws on her own rural upbringing, and British Bahamian identity. Rhea Storr often works in 16mm film; she considers that analogue film might be useful to Black artists, both in the aesthetics it creates and the production models it facilitates. She considers the ways in which images fail us or are resistive.
Recent screenings include Filmforum MOCA, Los Angeles, Chicago Underground Film Festival, European Media Art Festival, Berwick Film and Media Artist Festival, Hamburg International Short Film Festival, Kassel Doc Fest, Alchemy Film and Media Art Festival (programmer) and National Museum of African American History and Culture. Recent exhibitions include Somerset House and Artist Film International (including Whitechapel Gallery London, Bonniers Konsthall, Sweden and Istanbul Modern).She is the winner of the Aesthetica Art Prize 2020 and the inaugural Louis Le Prince Experimental Film Prize.
Selected is produced by videoclub and Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network. Supported by Arts Council England and Film London. Thanks to LUX for their support.
Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network
Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) supports London-based artists working in moving image, working in partnership to deliver a comprehensive programme including production award schemes, regular screenings, talks and events, as well as the prestigious annual Film London Jarman Award.
June 16, 2020Joey Holder, ‘Semelparous’, 2020. Photo: Damian Griffiths More info: https://www.joeyholder.com/semelparous
Thanks to support from Arts Council England, we now have the resources to support four artists to participate in building a digital residency space with us.
Over the next five months we’re going to develop an accessible, purpose-built digital residency platform, collaborating with four artists to create a space that supports their practice, while engaging audiences with their work.
The aims of the residency space are to provide an accessible space for artists and audiences who may be limited by resources or physical barriers from participating; to support artists to make new work and to engage with audiences (through talks, workshops, events); to produce a platform that reflects the opportunities provided by a physical residency – skills sharing, new contacts, critical development, space; and to offer an exhibition platform for artists’ work in the UK and internationally.
To do this we’ll be building the residency space with artists, a web developer and an access specialist, reviewing and reflecting on the space as it is developed.
The resident artists who’ll be working with us are:
Seecum Cheung current work is an ongoing series of films based upon interviews and encounters initiated by the artist with leading specialists in the field of right-wing radicalism, human rights and activist groups, politicians, and affected citizens. Her films include collaborations and commissions by NHS England, brap human rights equality charity, and SBS Public Broadcasters.
Joey Holder‘s work raises philosophical questions of our universe and things yet unknown, regarding the future of science, medicine, biology and human-machine interactions. Working with scientific and technical experts she makes immersive, multimedia installations that explore the limits of the human and how we experience non-human, natural and technological forms.
Daniel Locke is an artist and graphic novelist based in Brighton, UK. Since 2013 much of his work has been informed and shaped by the discoveries of contemporary science. He’s worked with Nobrow, Arts Council England, The Wellcome Trust and The National Trust.
Romily Alice Walden is a transdisciplinary artist whose work centres a queer, disabled perspective on the fragility of the body. Their practice spans sculpture, installation, video, curation and printed matter, all of which is undertaken with a socially engaged and research-led working methodology. Recent work has shown at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art: Newcastle, Hebel Am Uffer: Berlin, SOHO20: New York and Tate Exchange: Tate Modern: London. In 2019 Walden was a Shandaken Storm King resident, and will be resident at Wysing Arts Centre in 2020. They work both individually and collectively as a member of Sickness Affinity Group; a group of art workers and activists who work on the topic of sickness/disability.
We are aiming to have a prototype space by the end of July/early August; how this will be and look, we’re not sure yet. Join our mailing list to keep up to date or follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
Over the past three rounds of New Creatives, videoclub’s director, Jamie Wyld, has been working as Development Executive on the New Creatives programme with Screen South, to review applications, interview applicants and provide development support.
New Creatives is a vital programme that is supporting young, talented artists who want to explore and experiment, and develop their knowledge and skills. If you’re between 16 and 30 and have an exciting, novel idea for a film or audio work, then you should apply.
The fourth and final call-out for New Creatives for film and audio applications is now open with a deadline of 6 July at 5pm. Find out more below or go to the Screen South site for more information.
Details about the scheme from Screen South:
Screen South, in collaboration with the BBC and Arts Council England, are excited to announce Film and Audio applications are open for the groundbreaking New Creatives scheme.
We are inviting creatives aged 16-30 based in the South East (from Norwich down to Kent) to apply for a commission to develop a new and exciting idea to be aired on the BBC. We’re looking for creative and thought provoking ideas for new works that are fresh and innovative proposals for short films, audio projects.
Successful applicants will be provided with full support by Screen South to develop their idea into an audio or film piece. New Creatives can come from any artistic discipline including: Animation, Dance, Performance, Comedy, Poetry, Spoken-word, Music, Rap, Writing, Film, Art, Visual Art, Storytelling, Game Design and more! At this time you might also be thinking about finding innovative ways around the challenges of physical production and new ways working remotely.
New Creatives is a national talent development scheme that will nurture and showcase new emerging creative voices. Screen South has 100 commissions to give out across Film, Audio and Interactive spanning 4 calls in 2 years. This is our final call for Film & Audio with project budgets from £4000-£5000 available.
You can find out more about our New Creatives scheme here, view all of the works currently available from past rounds here, or read the audio and film briefs.
All the New Creatives content from the five Network Centres will be appearing here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/bbc-introducing-arts, the new work of the next generation of Film, Audio and Interactive creatives from across the country via the BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.
It’s 10 years since we did the first Selected programme, an idea conjured by Ben Rivers and myself as we talked about ideas for how to curate a new videoclub programme. Simply, Ben had been shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award (2010), and he suggested we ask the other shortlisted artists to nominate artists who were earlier in their careers and/or who deserved greater recognition. That process of nomination has been central to the project ever since. Following that discussion, I met with Rose Cupit (Senior Manager, Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network) on a sunny day in Brighton’s Pavilion Gardens. And after some discussion with the FLAMIN team we agreed to set up Selected together.
Over the past nine programmes we’ve shown work by 88 artists, with programmes being shown across the UK, at spaces including Whitechapel Gallery, Nottingham Contemporary and CCA Glasgow, plus internationally at venues in USA, China and Taiwan including at ATA Space (San Francisco), Echo Park Film Centre (Los Angeles), Shenzhen New Media Arts Festival and OSMOSIS Audiovisual Media Festival (Taipei).
Since being part of Selected, artists’ careers have evolved, with several going on to be shortlisted or even winning the Jarman Award, including Sebastian Buerkner, Benedict Drew, Adham Faramawy, Mikhail Karikis, Imran Perretta, Heather Phillipson, Charlotte Prodger and Marianna Simnett.
This year we’re excited to be working with the artists who were shortlisted for the Jarman Award in 2019; Cécile B. Evans, Beatrice Gibson, Mikhail Karikis, Hetain Patel, Imran Perretta and Rehana Zaman, who are nominating artists they believe should be represented by Selected in 2020. This new programme will be shown on our site in June.
In celebration of 10 years of Selected, we’ve chosen a collection of works, one from each year, which shows a variety of styles and talent across the decade. We’ve included links to artists’ sites and to excerpts of work available online. Enjoy.
Golden Leopard winner of Locarno 2010 and Best Portuguese Short Film Award at IndieLisboa 2010, A History of Mutual Respect is a philosophical and sensual existential journey, “an unclassifiable eccentric and political film, reminding of the most daring works of Glauber Rocha. The two protagonists (played by the two authors) go to Latin America in search of third-world exoticism and of a “pure” and “clean” sexuality. During this metaphorical journey, a universe of lost innocence and disenchantment takes shape, where no revolutionary or humanist utopia is allowed. The Western European heroes’ cynicism mirrors the phantasm of wealth and comfort of the beautiful Brazilian girl they meet and try to seduce in the jungle.” – Cahiers du Cinema, Ariel Schweitzer.
Selected 2 (2012)
Alexis Milne, The Delinquents Part 1 (Jobseekers), 2010 (see an excerpt here)
The video Jobseekers is part one of The Delinquents, a series examining subcultures and their fractious relationship with parent/dominant culture. Jobseekers samples Tim Roth’s skinhead nihilistic rage in Alan Clarke’s 1980’s film, ‘Made in Britain’. By situating himself within the projected representation and through a process of re-projection, layered sampling and physical screen manipulation Milne creates an abstracted fragmentary regurgitation of Roth’s nihilistic gestures. A month after finishing the final edit of Jobseekers, London witnessed a city wide spontaneous outburst of rioting reminiscent of civil unrest from previous decades, fueled by similar themes of police brutality and disenfranchised frustration.
In Just About Managing a group of actors and non-actors assemble in various spaces to enact a blackly comic story concerning a man who is good at pretending. Set in and around a primary school at the end of a summer term, the video sees a pupil read a composition aloud to his teacher while staff members participate in an elaborate group activity to celebrate the end of a difficult term. Elsewhere, a lone performer appears to be getting on with some home improvement. The video employs original spoken word, song and dance to explore the difference between what actually is and what appears to be.
Selected 4 (2014)
Heather Phillipson, Splashy Phasings, 2013 (see an excerpt here)
Shot and composed by the artist within a painted set, Splashy Phasings is a plunge into a deluged universe: information, news items and emotions overflow. Wet mouths, eyeballs and swimming goggles expel and suck up fluids. Colours, tears and responsibilities leak. The interior has a lid that doesn’t close properly.
You’re Dead to Me takes us to Singapore, into a tranquil cemetery sprawled across a dense, unruly tropical forest. We encounter a solitary, anonymous figure who sleeps on graves and wanders through the lush forest as if in search of something. The lone, mysterious character marks a sense of isolation and his movements signal a final communion with the forest and the dead before they vanish.
It can kill too, having now replaced lead in bullet manufacture.
More curiously, it has uniquely strong diamagnetic properties, and is a valued shamanic tool offering insight into other realms. It was also discovered at Roswell, and might possibly provide the answer to unlocking the mystery of alien space travel.
In A Corruption of Mass, Broadmeadow has choreographed movements for a female dancer in response to Bismuth’s uniquely complex fractalesque characteristics. The core of the film alludes to the other worldliness this element evokes, whilst simultaneously tracing its chemical journey from ingot to crystal.
In the making of Janus Collapse, originally commissioned for a recent solo show at Bluecoat in Liverpool, Faramawy draws on the language of advertising, co-opting the special effects used to evoke desire for people, things and experiences. The artist combines these seductive devices of lustre, slipperiness, morphing and repetition with his own interest in the transgressive aesthetics of ‘body horror’, found in manga and anime, as well as Cronenberg’s cult classic Videodrome (1983) and Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis science fiction trilogy.
“In Gaby, a new video work named for the duo’s best friend, the artists present three vignettes highlighting intersections of gay culture (its iconography, politics and relationships) and the police (their tactics and their personnel). The vignettes include: a montage of found video clips where active police dance to Y.M.C.A. at pride parades, often joined by celebrating paraders; an animatics sequence of a 1977 issue of Christopher Street magazine, extolling (white, male) gay communities’ propensity to rejuvenate disregarded neighbourhoods and “save” Manhattan from the “slums”; and a recounting by the eponymous Gaby of his brief relationship as an eighteen-year-old with a straight-presenting gay cop.” – Taken from press release for Queer Thoughts.
Plasma Vista began as a promotional film for a new business concept of the same name that creatively showcased episodical art, design products, furnishings and clothing. Everything featured in the frame would be available to purchase. After two years of development, the promo morphed from a strategic investment into a collaborative, expressive work.
The film manifested a disobedient breakdown that rejected the original brief. Hijacking the commercial framework and seizing the business name for its own, Plasma Vista moulded itself around ideas that explored utility, economics, production, creativity and aesthetics. The promotional concept had eaten itself, pushed back, self-rendered dysfunctional and reformed within an independent experimental piece of moving image.
May 1, 2020The Glamorous Boys of Tang (1985, Chui Kang-Chien), Su Hui-Yu, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.
In collaboration with Platform Asia, we are presenting Displaced Belongings online 8 May till 30 May20. The programme can be watched at any time over this period, just click here to watch the films.
Displaced Belongings presents six recent film and video works by Asian artists that explore the complex nature of identity. Artists respond to personal and global experiences, such as war and memory, ejection from home and expression of sexual identity to inform their filmmaking. Drawing a dialogue through themes such as gender, race, class and self-image, artists express their identities, uncovering and recovering memories to analyse daily life. See below for the trailer, or follow this link to watch the full programme.
Programme:
At Home But Not at Home, Suneil Sanzgiri (US), 2019, 10:43 mins (UK premiere) Salt House, Bella Riza (UK), 2017, 12:39 mins Action, Almost Unable to Think, Mao Haonan (China), 2018, 11:20 mins (UK premiere) Dreams, Butterfly Boy Dreams (Genesis), Mathis Zhang (China), 2019, 7:13 mins The Glamorous Boys of Tang (1985, Chui Kang-Chien), Su Hui-Yu (Taiwan), 2018, 15 mins A Private Collection, Wu Chi-Yu (Taiwan), 2016, 13:33mins
Displaced Belongings is curated by Moritz Cheung for Platform Asia & videoclub. Delivered in association with videoclub and supported by Arts Council England.
March 11, 2020Still from Action, Almost Unable to Think by Mao Haonan, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.
Platform Asia presents Displaced Belongings – a touring screening programme across the UK in association with videoclub.
Displaced Belongings presents six recent film and video works by Asian artists that explore the complex nature of identity. Artists respond to personal and global experiences, such as war and memory, ejection from home and expression of sexual identity to inform their filmmaking. Drawing a dialogue through themes such as gender, race, class and self-image, artists express their identities, uncovering and recovering memories to analyse daily life.
Films by artists Suneil Sanzgiri and Bella Riza explore the emotional diasporic memories of their families; from the colonial history of India to the ongoing dispute between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Mao Haonan’s film, Action, Almost Unable to Think tells the life story of a soldier from his personal perspective after death.
Matthis Zhang and Su Hui-Yu’s work show the possibilities and beauty of queerness, and in contrast, the harshness of civic and social oppression. And in A Private Collection by Wu Chi-Yu, the artist reveals a migrant couple’s passion for their pirate DVD collection, which reminds us that the impact of a film can go far beyond the screen, and provide a new understanding of the world.
Artists in the programme include: Mao Haonan (China), Bella Riza (UK), Suneil Sanzgiri (US), Su Hui-Yu (Taiwan), Wu Chi-Yu (Taiwan) and Mathis Zhang (China). Action, Almost Unable to Think by Mao Haonan (2018) and At Home But Not at Home by Suneil Sanzgiri (2019) have not been shown in the UK before.
Programme:
At Home But Not at Home, Suneil Sanzgiri (US), 2019, 10:43 mins (UK premiere) Salt House, Bella Riza (UK), 2017, 12:39 mins Action, Almost Unable to Think, Mao Haonan (China), 2018, 11:20 mins (UK premiere) Dreams, Butterfly Boy Dreams (Genesis), Mathis Zhang (China), 2019, 7:13 mins The Glamorous Boys of Tang(1985, Chui Kang-Chien), Su Hui-Yu (Taiwan), 2018, 15 mins A Private Collection, Wu Chi-Yu (Taiwan), 2016, 13:33mins
(Age 15+)
Venue dates and details
BACKLIT, Nottingham Date: 19 Mar 2020 Time: 6:30pm – 9:00pm Address: BACKLIT, 3rd Floor (Gallery), Alfred House, Ashley Street, Nottingham, NG3 1JG Free entry: Book your tickets now
Royal College of Art, London Date: 31 Mar 2020 Time: 6:30pm – 8:00pm Address: Gorvy Lecture Theatre, RCA Dyson Building, Riverside, 1 Hester Rd, London SW11 4AN Book tickets here
Free Entry *Pre-book tickets to guarantee entry*
Phoenix Cinema and Arts Centre, Leicester Date: 24 April 2020 Time: 8pm – 9:30pm, following with Q&A Address: 4 Midland Street, Leicester LE1 1TG Tickets: TBA Web / contact: www.phoenix.org.uk
More touring venues and dates coming soon.
Displaced Belongings is curated by Moritz Cheung for Platform Asia. Delivered in association with videoclub and supported by Arts Council England.
March 11, 2020M.A.C.H.O., Whiskey Chow – photo by Anqi Jiao (2018)
Platform Asia presents Alternative Acts at Backlit Gallery, Nottingham in association with videoclub.
Alternative Acts explores ways in which artists attempt to explore their culture and identity via issues such as gender, class and race. Through individual approaches, artists consider what identities represent – showing how identity can be affected by circumstances, including censorship, racism, political upheaval and war.
Inquiring into the norms of gender, Chinese drag king Whiskey Chow’s performance, M.A.C.H.O. compares conflicting queer/female masculinity with western capitalist values. M.A.C.H.O. aims to provoke discussion about female queerness, fetishism and race.
Moving image programme, Displaced Belongings screens alongside the live performance of M.A.C.H.O., which can be dipped into and out of during the live event.
Displaced Belongings is a programme of film and video focusing on how Asian artists’ identities have been shaped by the impact of issues such as immigration, language, censorship and queerness. It includes recent work by Mao Haonan (China) , Bella Riza (UK), Suneil Sanzgiri (US), Su Hui-Yu (Taiwan), Wu Chi-Yu (Taiwan) and Mathis Zhang (China). The films Action, Almost Unable to Think by Mao Haonan (2018) and At Home But Not at Home by Suneil Sanzgiri (2019) have not been shown in the UK before.
Venue date and details
BACKLIT Date: 19 Mar 2020 Time: 6:30pm: Doors open and bar
7-9pm: Screening and performance Address: BACKLIT, 3rd Floor (Gallery), Alfred House, Ashley Street, Nottingham, NG3 1JG Free entry Book your tickets now
*Pre-book your tickets to guarantee entry*
Programme
Performance
M.A.C.H.O. – Whiskey Chow
19.00 – 20.00
‘M.A.C.H.O’ situates a symbolic conversation between female/queer masculinity and a fetishised man-like figure, creating an absurd companionship. Throughout the performance, Chow reveals a “failed” masculinity on gendered, sexed, raced and marginalised bodies to problematise hierarchies of masculinities in western capitalist society.
Artist’s biography
Whiskey Chow is a London-based artist and Chinese drag king. Coming from an activist background in China, Whiskey has been engaging with political issues in her practice, Whiskey also explores female masculinity, stereotypes and cultural projections of Chinese/Asian identity. Studied at Royal College of Art (UK), Whiskey interdisciplinarily making performance, moving image and experimental sound piece. Prior moved to the UK, Whiskey has worked closely with local queer communities in Guangzhou and contributed as actor, co-playwright and sound designer in the production of ‘For Vaginas’ Sake’ (2013) (將陰道獨白到底, the original Chinese version of The Vagina Monologues).
Screening
Displaced Belongings 18.30 – end of event
At Home But Not at Home, Suneil Sanzgiri (US), 2019, 10:43 mins (UK premiere) Salt House, Bella Riza (UK), 2017, 12:39 mins Action, Almost Unable to Think, Mao Haonan (China), 2018, 11:20 mins (UK premiere) Dreams, Butterfly Boy Dreams (Genesis), Mathis Zhang (China), 2019, 7:13 mins The Glamorous Boys of Tang(1985, Chui Kang-Chien), Su Hui-Yu (Taiwan), 2018, 15 mins A Private Collection, Wu Chi-Yu (Taiwan), 2016, 13:33mins
Alternative Acts is curated by Moritz Cheung for Platform Asia. Delivered in association with videoclub and BACKLIT, and supported by Arts Council England.
March 11, 2020Matt Lambert, God is Watching, 2017 (courtesy of the artist, Tate and Random Acts)
Both Sides Now 5 looks at the way in which artist filmmakers are exploring Queer culture, using various film and video techniques, to explore aspects of Queer life in Hong Kong, China and the UK.
A special screening of the Both Sides Now 5: Queer programme takes place at Strangelove Time-based Media Festival online.
Dates programme will be viewable: 15 – 21 June 2020. Programme will be available between 11am on 15 June till 8pm 21 June. Click here to go the films.
Programme of films
Where We Are Now, Lucie Rachel, 2016, 9’29” Something Said, Jay Bernard, 2017, 7’33” God is Watching, Matt Lambert, 2017, 3’24” The Drum Tower, Fan Po Po, 2016, 17’52” To Be Brandon, Nicole Pun, 2019, 6’30” Differences Do Matter, Anson Mak, 1998, 3’00” A Glass of Water, Kayla Wu, 2019, 4’30”
Total programme run time: 52 mins
Both Sides Now 5: Queer
British colonialism widely affected legal discrimination against LGBT people – specifically homosexual men (just as in Britain, female homosexuality was not recognised in colonies). As in many colonies, laws criminalising male homosexuality were slow to change in Hong Kong, with decriminalisation taking until 1991, as opposed to 1967 in the UK. In 2019, laws regarding equality for LGBTQ+ people are almost equal. Though reception to Queer people in the UK and Hong Kong varies widely geographically, generationally and socially. With the rise of right-wing sentiments globally, the acceptance Queer people have enjoyed feels like it is in descent.
In response to post-colonialism and the rise of right-wing opinions, we have curated this programme to show a range of artworks that explore Queer identity and culture. Filmmakers from both sides explore aspects of LGBTQI+ life – with artists from both the UK and Hong Kong making work that reflects upon Queer identity, life and creativity.
Both Sides Now is a tactical program that uses film and video to explore culture and society between different nations, the UK, China and Hong Kong, and beyond. It is a project developed in collaboration between videoclub (UK) and Videotage (Hong Kong).
