Selected X – online programme

June 18, 2020
Still image taken from the film O'Pierrot by filmmaker Tanoa Sasraku
Still image taken from the film O'Pierrot by filmmaker Tanoa Sasraku
Tanoa 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.

Artists for the 10th year of Selected are: Ayo Akingbade, Beverley Bennett, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, Rabz Lansiquot, Jennifer Martin, Sharif Persaud & Tim Corrigan, Tanoa Sasraku and Rhea Storr.

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.

          

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Digital residency + space development

June 16, 2020
Joey 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.

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Film & Audio commissions – call for applications

May 23, 2020

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.

We will be running webinars where potential applicants can find out more, sign up via eventbrite here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-creatives-call-4-webinar-what-is-new-creatives-and-how-do-i-apply-tickets-106078906866

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.

You can read all about the scheme and what it has achieved so far at the following link: BBC Arts and Arts Council England announce first New Creatives commissions: https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/new-creatives

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.

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Selected history + highlights

May 7, 2020

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.

– Jamie Wyld, director, videoclub

Selected 1 (2011)

Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, AHistory of Mutual Respect, 2010 (see an excerpt here and the film’s trailer here)

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.

Selected 3 (2013)

Edward Thomasson, Just About Managing, 2012 (see an excerpt here)

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.

Selected 5 (2015)

Min-Wei Ting, You’re Dead to Me, 2014 (see an excerpt here)

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.

Selected 6 (2016)

Megan Broadmeadow, A Corruption of Mass, 2015 (see an excerpt here)

Bismuth, when ingested can cure an upset stomach.

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.

Selected 7 (2017)

Adham Faramawy, Janus Collapse, 2016 (see an excerpt here)

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.

Selected 8 (2018)

Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings, Gaby, 2018

“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.

Selected 9 (2019)

Sarah Cockings & Harriet Fleuriot, Plasma Vista, 2016 (see an excerpt here)

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.

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Displaced Belongings – Online programme

May 1, 2020
The 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 May 20. 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

(Age 18+)

Click here to watch Displaced Belongings now. 

Displaced Belongings is curated by Moritz Cheung for Platform Asia & videoclub. Delivered in association with videoclub and supported by Arts Council England. 

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Displaced Belongings – UK screening tour – CANCELLED due to Covid-19 (now online)

March 11, 2020
Still 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.

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Alternative Acts @ Backlit Gallery – CANCELLED due to Covid-19

March 11, 2020
M.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
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*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

(Ages 15+)

Full details for Displaced Belongings programme

Alternative Acts 20 poster

Alternative Acts is curated by Moritz Cheung for Platform Asia. Delivered in association with videoclub and BACKLIT, and supported by Arts Council England.

        

#alternativeact #displacedbelongings #platformasia

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Both Sides Now 5: Queer @ Strangelove Festival – online

March 11, 2020
Matt 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).

     

 

 

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FLAME HK – Asia’s first video art fair

October 23, 2019
Patrick Hough, And If In a Thousand Years, 2017 (courtesy of the artist)

Set in the stunning surroundings of Aberdeen, Hong Kong, Ovolo Southside Hotel is the host of Asia’s very first video art fair, FLAME HK – set up and delivered by Formosa Art Fair (Taiwan). Established as a roving fair, taking place in cities across Asia, Hong Kong is the fair’s first stop.

FLAME HK took place over three floors of the hotel, with 30+ rooms showing work from galleries and representatives from across E Asia, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, S Korea, Japan and Singapore – with videoclub as the only non-Asian participant. Organisations were a mixture of commercial and non-profit, including Waley Art (Taiwan), Videotage (Hong Kong), Tang Feng Gallery (Taiwan) and Keumsan Gallery (S Korea).

FLAME invited videoclub to curate a show for the fair, and we decided to show works by five artists – two duos and one solo artist – which included And If In a Thousand Years by Patrick Hough, AfterGlow (Susceptible, Exposed, Infected, Recovered) by boredomresearch and Plasma Vista by Sarah Cockings & Harriet Fleuriot.

While there weren’t many visitors – due mainly to the protests taking place in Hong Kong and lack of visitors traveling (the MTR being shut down and people staying home) – we had some great feedback to the show. All three works were requested for a follow up show in S Korea. We also met with several galleries who wanted to develop future collaborations. So, it was worth taking the shot.

FLAME will take place again next year, either in Japan or S Korea; keep an eye out for the call for exhibitors on their website.

Some videoclub exhibition photos below.

Plasma Vista by Sarah Cockings & Harriet Fleuriot installed and watched at FLAME HK

AfterGlow by boredomresearch and And If In a Thousand Years by Patrick Hough installed at FLAME HK

AfterGlow by boredomresearch install shot
And If In a Thousand Years by Patrick Hough installation shot
Plasma Vista by Sarah Cockings and Harriet Fleuriot installation shot
View from Ovolo Southside Hotel where FLAME HK took place
G&Ts at Tang Feng Gallery with artists and staff

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Selected IX at QUAD, Derby

October 17, 2019
Alia Pathan, Emperor Far Away, 2016 (courtesy of the artist)

On 9 November, we’ll be screening the final showing of Selected IX at QUAD in Derby. Screening to be followed by Q&A and talk by Jamie Wyld, videoclub’s director.

Venue: QUAD, Market Place, Cathedral Quarter, Derby, DE1 3AS
Date/time: Saturday, 9 November at 3-5pm
Price: Free entry – BOOK FREE TICKET

Selected is a new collection of diverse artists’ film and video touring the UK in May-July 2019, taking place at some of the UK’s leading venues for showcasing artists’ film and video.

Shortlisted artists for the 2018 Film London Jarman Award – Daria Martin, Jasmina Cibic, Lawrence Lek, Margaret Salmon, David Blandy & Larry Achiampong and Hardeep Pandhal – have nominated work by up-and-coming filmmaking talent, to develop an invigorating new programme of work.

Selected brings together some of the best work from early career film and video artists from the UK in a vibrant programme of recent artists’ moving image.

Programme of work:

  • Vikesh Govind, Shoes, 2017, 3’40”
  • Ollie Dook, Processing Papers, 2015, 8’07”
  • Sarah Cockings and Harriet Fleuriot, Plasma Vista, 2016, 7’31”
  • Laura O’Neill, AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN (WE EAT THE WORLD AND THE WORLD EATS US), 8’32”, 2017
  • Clifford Sage, Where’s My Stick, 2017, 4’21”
  • Sid Smith, Extension, 2018, 5’09”
  • Alia Pathan, Emperor Far Away, 2016, 4’50”
  • Alexander Storey Gordon, In Camera (I Used Blood for the Red), 2015, 1’44”
  • Kimberley O’Neill, Circuits of Bad Conscience, 2017, 12’

See pdf of booklet for Selected 9: Selected 9 booklet

Produced by videoclub and Film London Artists’ Moving Image Network. Supported by Arts Council England and Film London.

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.

http://flamin.filmlondon.org.uk

      

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