Jan 20, 2020
Forum Expanded 2020: Part of the Problem

The new decade begins at a time which has produced a great deal of speechlessness and thus a need for ever clearer words to be found. How does such a present change the curatorial gaze? What is the role of cinema and art? 39 installations and films are dedicated to such themes as migration, racism, sexism, state violence, capitalism, colonialism, extractivism, the climate crisis, fears of the future, the loss of history and more. But above all, they refer to themselves as being part of the wider structure from which they emerged.

The group exhibition opens at the Betonhalle of silent green Kulturquartier on February 19 and features The Otolith Group for the second time already. Their installation INFINITY minus Infinity uses dance, music, recital and animation to examine the relationship between capitalism and racism and intertwines these with the repercussions of climate policy. Based on the history of weaving in western Africa, Filipa César tells a story of subversion in her collectively-produced work Quantum Creole. The Palestinian collective RIWAQ in collaboration with Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari pursue a similar undertaking with their multimedia project Secrets of a Digital Garden: 50 Villages – 50 Flowers, which considers the subversive potential of seeds as repositories of memory.

In Shipwreck at the Threshold of Europe, Lesvos, Aegean Sea: 28 October 2015, Forensic Architecture meticulously reconstruct an accident involving a boat full of migrants close to the European coast. The work is based on video material recorded by artist and survivor Amel Alzakout as the boat was sinking. How such images are to be dealt with and the relationship between them and their history is the theme of her own film Purple Sea, a collaboration with filmmaker Khaled Abdulwahed made beforehand.

The additional twelve film programmes of shorts and feature-length works contain considerable linguistic diversity, including the sign language used by a group of people in the northeast of Brazil (Jogos Dirigidos by Jonathas de Andrade) as well as the body language employed in the Congolese short Matata by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo or the experimental sounds and tones which appear in Akram Zaatari’s Al-Houbut.

Letter from a Guarani Woman in Search of the Land Without Evil, an exhibition at SAVVY Contemporary, sifts through the archive of the audio-visual journey of Patricia Ferreira Pará Yxapy, the most active female representative of Brazilian indigenous cinema.

The NDN Survival Trilogy by Thirza Cuthand can be seen at the Marshall McLuhan Salon. It explores the consequences of raw material extraction for Canada’s Indigenous population. The three videos create a space to expand the theme to include queer perspectives.

Curated by Stefanie Schulte Strathaus (section head), Anselm Franke (co-founder), Maha Maamoun and Ulrich Ziemons. SAVVY Contemporary: Anna Azevedo.

Film and exhibition programme

Abstracted / Family
Japan
by Koki Tanaka
International premiere

Akiya
Finland / Japan / USA
by Jonna Kina
World premiere

Al-Houbut (The Landing)
Lebanon / United Arab Emirates
by Akram Zaatari
International premiere

Al-Maw’oud (The Promised)
Egypt
by Ahmed El Ghoneimy
World premiere

Apiyemiyekî?
Brazil / France / Netherlands / Portugal
by Ana Vaz
International premiere

Born of the * * *
On Zarathustra'’s Going Under from Cairo to Oran
Palestine / USA
by Ayreen Anastas, Rene Gabri
World premiere

Citizens of the Cosmos
USA / Japan / Ukraine
by Anton Vidokle
European premiere

Doublewide
USA
by Jenny Perlin
World premiere

Equinox
USA
by Margaret Honda
World premiere

Expedition Content
USA
by Ernst Karel, Veronika Kusumaryati
World premiere

Her Name Was Europa
Germany
by Anja Dornieden, Juan David González Monroy
World premiere

Jiíbie
Colombia / France
by Laura Huertas Millán
European premiere

Jogos Dirigidos (Directed Games)
Brazil
by Jonathas de Andrade
International premiere

letter to a friend
Palestine / USA
by Emily Jacir
International premiere

Matata
Democratic Republic of the Congo / USA / Netherlands
by Petna Ndaliko Katondolo
International premiere

Moazzam ma yalla haqeqy (Most of What Follows Is True)
Egypt
by Maged Nader
World premiere

On vous parle de Paris: Maspero, les mots ont un sens
France 1970
by Chris Marker

(Outros) Fundamentos ((Other) Foundations)
Brazil
by Aline Motta
European premiere

The Phantom Menace
United Kingdom
by Graeme Arnfield
World premiere

Recovery
USA
by Kevin Jerome Everson
World premiere

Purple Sea
Germany
by Amel Alzakout, Khaled Abdulwahed
World premiere

Tatsuniya II
Nigeria
by Rahima Gambo
International premiere

Untitled Sequence of Gaps
Germany
by Vika Kirchenbauer
World premiere

Vaga Carne (Dazed Flesh)
Brazil
by Grace Passô, Ricardo Alves Jr.
European premiere

Télé Réalité
Belgium / Germany / Democratic Republic of the Congo
by Lucile Desamory, Gustave Fundi, Glodie Mubikay
World premiere

The Whole Shebang
USA
by Ken Jacobs
European premiere

Group exhibition

Betonhalle, silent green
Opening on Feb 19, 2020 at 7pm

A I O U
USA
by Anton Vidokle, Adam Khalil, Bayley Sweitzer
World premiere

Half Blue
USA / Lebanon
by Joe Namy
European premiere

Imaginary Explosions, episode 2, Chaitén
USA / Germany
by Caitlin Berrigan
International premiere

INFINITY minus Infinity
United Kingdom / United Arab Emirates / Belgium
by The Otolith Group
International premiere

Memory Also Die
Nigeria
by Didi Cheeka
World premiere

Porosity Valley 2: Tricksters’ Plot
Republic of Korea
by Ayoung Kim
International premiere

Quantum Creole
Germany / France / Portugal / Spain
by Filipa César
International premiere

Secrets of a Digital Garden: 50 Villages - 50 Flowers
Palestine
by RIWAQ in Collaboration with Yara Sharif and Nasser Golzari
European premiere

Shipwreck at the Threshold of Europe, Lesvos, Aegean Sea: 28 October 2015
United Kingdom
by Forensic Architecture
World premiere

The Sun
Canada
by Kika Thorne
European premiere

Vu de l'extérieur
Belgium / Democratic Republic of the Congo / Luxembourg
by Lucile Desamory in collaboration with Glodie Mubikay and Gustave Fundi
International premiere

SAVVY Contemporary

Opening on Feb 19, 2020 at 7pm

Letter from a Guarani Woman in Search of the Land Without Evil
Brazil
by Patricia Ferreira Pará Yxapy
World premiere

Marshall Mc Luhan Salon, Canadian Embassy

Opening on Feb 20, 2020 at 5.30pm

NDN Survival Trilogy
Canada
by Thirza Cuthand
World premiere