Screening: aCinema Summer Screening Series Saturday, July 20th at 7PM

Join us for the first-ever aCinema Summer Screening Series, featuring a weekend of six programs curated by Takahiro Suzuki and Janelle VanderKelen! We are thrilled to welcome them back to the gallery for this special, condensed presentation, which comprises aCinema’s Season 8.

Screenings will take place at 7 pm on Friday; 3 pm, 5 pm, and 7 pm on Saturday; and 5 pm and 7 pm on Sunday.

The first two screenings will feature 17 works selected from the aDifferent Program open call held this spring, which received nearly 200 submissions from around the globe. The weekend will then move into four additional curated screenings including works by Asako Ujita, Ayla Dmyterko, Gelare Khoshgozaran, Panu Johansson, Victoria Verseau, and more!

A beautiful accordion-fold program produced by Woodland Pattern and Split Fountain Press will be available for purchase in commemoration of this event. More information about this publication, and about the screenings, is forthcoming on our website.

Saturday July 20th, Full Program at 7PM:

Deciduous Symphysis (TRT approx 54 min) 

Game of Hope, Claire Davies, 14 min 37 sec 

SYNOPSIS: 

Working through a not knowing of NFTs and their digital materiality, a 3D scan of a Snickers  wrapper becomes an obsession through which to explore value systems, hope and class  structures. Through an internal monologue we follow the considerations around making an NFT,  revealing a personal conflict between the structures of capitalism, whilst desiring the luxuries of  modern life.  

At the centre of this work is a recurring interest in exploring processes of uncertainty as we  adapt to changes in technology, society, and principles around value, looking, and exchange.  Through these questions I employ lived experiences to explore multiple truths, questioning how  I can love a digital object but also be conflicted by the medium’s sudden foray into the world of  the financial elite. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Claire Davies (1987, Nottingham, UK) is a moving image artist living in Nottingham, UK.  Through modes of stillness, observation and deconstruction, Claire works with photogrammetry,  3D animation, video, stop motion and installation to create moving image works questioning  desire, value systems and power structures through her lived experience with developing  technology. Claire is a an Associate Lecturer at Cardiff Metropolitan University and Leeds Arts  University. Recent exhibitions and film festival screenings include; Kassel Documentary Film  and Video Festival, Germany; Sheffield International Documentary Festival; Alchemy Film  Festival, Scotland; TCBTV, Somerset House, London; Blush, Random Acts commission for Little  Dot Productions and Channel 4 Television and; The Valley of Lost Things, Two Queens,  Leicester. 

Still Life with Woman, Tea and Letter, Tess Martin, 2 min 14 sec SYNOPSIS: 

A photograph is a window into the past, but sometimes, the border between past and present is  not entirely clear. This stop-motion animation invites us to think about our relationship to time,  by portraying one woman caught in the middle. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Tess Martin is a filmmaker/visual artist based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. Her work is  informed by hand made animation techniques and their potential to explore the human  condition. Persistent themes are our place in nature, our relationship to the past, and how  memory and perception inform identity. Her practice results in short films, interactive  installations, and paintings/prints. Recent works include the ORBIT phonotrope short film and  installation (2019) and the paper cut-out film Ginevra (2017). 

www.tessmartinart.com 

Scene #17: Athena and Victoria on the stone beach, Victoria Versau, 6 

min 47 sec 

SYNOPSIS: 

The video work Scene #17: Athena and Victoria on the stone beach (2019) by artist and  filmmaker Victoria Verseau, grapples with the complexities of being a trans girl filmmaker,  endeavoring to convey the sometimes somber reality of transgender life. The work explores this  as well as the relationship between two transgirls, Victoria herself and Athena, with two different  points of views on the matter. 

Athena expresses her dissatisfaction with the prevailing narrative surrounding trans women,  which tends to be centered on tragedy. Athena perceives that the film she and Victoria are  creating depicts yet another tragic narrative about trans women. This sentiment resonates with  discussions within the queer community, advocating for more positive portrayals and the  presence of strong role models. However, Victoria finds it troubling that she feels constrained  from sharing her authentic experiences. Shouldn't Victoria, as a trans woman who has  experienced the loss of one of her closest trans friends to suicide, have the freedom to narrate  her story as it truly is? 

Director's Commentary 

This narrative presents a novel perspective seldom explored or depicted in cinema. The  dynamic of two trans girls with differing viewpoints engaging in dialogue about this issue. I’ve  never heard or seen two trans girls with different opinions discussing this concern. 

Thus far, the discourse has predominantly favored the need for positive narratives, yet it seems  there's a reluctance to acknowledge an alternative viewpoint even when it comes from a trans  woman telling her own story. I've faced significant resistance when attempting to tell the  narrative of my closest trans friend's passing. As a trans woman, I've even found myself  distancing from the queer community due to the resistance I've encountered. I perceive this as a  concern; while it's crucial to have an abundance of positive narratives, we mustn't neglect the  significance of embracing both brightness and darkness. Positive narratives are undoubtedly  necessary, but we cannot afford to ignore the artistic processing of traumas that trans girls need  to undertake in order to move forward. It strikes me as odd that while such narratives find  acceptance in other mediums like literature and politics, they seem to encounter resistance in  film. 

Moreover, the existing darker narratives often stem from the perspective of cisgender  individuals, unlike in this instance, where a trans woman seeks to tell her story from her own  viewpoint. Doesn't it significantly alter the narrative if it's told by a trans woman rather than a cis  person, or should she adhere to the requests of the queer community? 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Victoria Verseau (b. 1988) is a Swedish artist and filmmaker. In her works she explores themes  such as body, memory, identity and social structures. There are also references to poetry and  philosophy in her art. The works are often based on personal experiences of being trans and a  new woman. Based on her own story, she examines larger existential questions; who we are,  how we exist and who we want to be. Verseau explores ideas of transition and remembrance,  as well as the ambivalence of telling personal stories while maintaining privacy. 

Victoria has a broad practice that includes sculpture, large-scale installations, performance,  videoworks, feature and short films, fiction and documentary. She lives and works in Stockholm  where she earned a master’s degree at the Royal Institute of Art in 2020.

Victoria is currently working on two feature films, Boundaries and Trans Memoria (formerly  Meril), the latter won The Hiventy Post Production Prize at Cannes Docs, Cannes Filmfestival  2023 and will premiere in 2024. She has had several solo exhibitions in Sweden and abroad.  Her films have been shown internationally, most recently A Ghost’s Gaze (2021) and Exercise  One (2016). In 2017, she was the first trans person to receive the Anna Award for her work in  film, a grant awarded by Women in Film & Television and UN Women Sweden. Her work  Approaching a Ghost (2021) was part of the Artists’ Film International 2021 and was shown at  several prestigious art institutions around the world. 

I am still learning, Ryan J Fleet, 2 min 03 sec 

SYNOPSIS: 

In this two-minute portrait, we meet Jimmy Hawkins, a dedicated dance instructor at the Buffalo  Center of Arts. Jimmy shares how dance has been a transformative force in his life, helping him  overcome negativity and challenges growing up. With a passion for dance and a commitment to  fostering self-expression, Jimmy encourages his students to embrace their individuality through  movement. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Ryan Fleet is continuously striving to capture the ordinary in cinematic ways. His work seeks to  blur the lines between narrative and documentary, creating pieces that resonate with truth and  beauty. With a technical approach that underscores his creative endeavors, Ryan finds joy in  the intricate process that leads to compelling creative outcomes. His dedication to authenticity  and his attention to detail define his unique artistic vision. 

Love, Anna Hawkinc, 7 min 42 sec  

SYNOPSIS: 

Love explores the shapeshifting nature of language on the internet. In the video, images  extracted from the Instagram platform–all found under #love–are transformed and integrated  with original footage shot by the artist. #love is the most used hashtag on Instagram and  currently there are over 2 billion posts that are tagged in this way. If each of the 2 billion posts  using #love provides a new context for the word, it becomes nearly impossible to determine any  fixed meaning for the term. Connecting seemingly disparate images, Love tries to understand  and link all of the possible associations of a given word at a single moment in time through  narrative. A voiceless narrator—a loose personification of the Instagram platform or perhaps  even the internet itself— addresses the viewer in the form of a love letter. They express an  understanding of love and describe a relationship based around the diverse imagery and  sometimes illogical associations created by #love. 

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Anna Hawkins is an artist who works primarily in moving image and installation with an interest  in the ways that images, gestures and language are circulated and transformed online and the  impacts of technology on the intimate spheres of daily life. Her works have recently been  exhibited and screened at transmediale (Berlin, DE), CCCB (Center of Contemporary Culture of  Barcelona (Barcelona, ES), the Istanbul International Experimental Film Festival (Istanbul, TR),  Dazibao (Montréal, CA), Images Festival (Toronto, CA), and The Art Gallery of Alberta  (Edmonton, CA). In 2022, she was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s preeminent  award for Contemporary Art. She is currently an Associate Professor in Studio Arts at MacEwan 

(Edmonton, CA). In 2022, she was longlisted for the Sobey Art Award, Canada’s preeminent  award for Contemporary Art. She is currently an Associate Professor in Studio Arts at MacEwan  University on Treaty 6 Territory ᐊᒥᐢᑿᒌᐚᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ (Amiskwacîwâskahikan), Edmonton, Canada. 

Host or Parasite: Boiling Body, Elena Chemerska & Ivana  Mirchevska, 8 min 18 sec 

SYNOPSIS: 

Host or Parasite: Boiling Body is an installation/video work that explores the intertwining of  environmental degradation and the impact of neoliberal capitalism on the individual.  

At a time when planetary depletion aligns with the draining of vitality of neoliberal capitalism,  we look into the consequences of bodily exhaustion. Neutralized to the point of numbness,  we oscillate between existing tendencies rather than encouraging the emergence of new  ones on a planetary scale. Amidst the ebb and flow of specific bodily and somatic  capacities, where do we look for zones of safety?  

Looking into the contemporary choreographers of care and their concealment of the idea of  bodies as repositories of diverse capacities, we delve into an auto-fictional world. Here, in  the metabolic entanglement between host and parasite, relations of hospitality, hostility,  conviviality and unequal transactions are rehearsed.  

Through the refusal to perform according to pre-given orientations, uttered messages,  subterraneous noise and flickering surfaces aim to reshape care not as an individualistic  anthropocentric approach, but as a pathway of vibrant interdependency.  

Collaborators:  

Sound: Jovan Bliznakovski  

3D Animation: Maja Cibreva  

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Elena Chemerska (1991) Skopje, North Macedonia. Currently based between Berlin and  Skopje. 

Broadly said, my artistic practice is embedded in exploring the relationships between aesthetics,  materiality, and politics. By employing different artistic strategies and approaches to image making, my research focuses on the ways in which we create the basis for the future in relation  to memory and the way we attempt to grasp history in its image. I approach human experience  by framing it as a subject through the relationship of what Paolo Virno defines as "memory as  the mark of the past pressed into our experience of the present", with what he defines as "hope  as a horizon of possibility." 

I formulate my work through moving images, sound, writing, painting, drawing, and  collaborations. Combining these elements, I tend to build elaborate installations which are  intended to function like spatial and temporal landscapes; different speculative spaces that  converge in the body experiencing the work. As a strategy, I often collaborate with allies from  across the spectrum of disciplines with the aim to confront and defy conditions of precarity. 

In our dynamic world of rapid cultural and technological change, whose wounded body is 

rebelling against all the human mastering and its assumptions of progress, we have reached a  point of uncertainty about whether human life on this planet as we know it can continue to exist.  Our bodies are fighting against the velocity of data which rapidly dissolves categories we once  deemed solid. At the same time, the human experience of being in the world is now visual and  visualized to an unprecedented degree. We are becoming more aware of our deep involvement  and constant exchange with the environment that we depend upon, as well as another human,  non-human, and more-than-human bodies. Drawing from this perspective, I often refer to the  modernist tradition- negotiating with the double binding of modernity, I position my practice in  critical discourse with it. Methodologically, my work is directed towards materializing multiple  vanishing points, different degrees, and units of measure for intensities, rhythms, and directions. 

Ivana Mirchevska (b.1992, living and working in Skopje) is a visual artist and researcher whose  artistic practice is rooted in time-based media, visual anthropology and painting. Ivana’s  research is drawn to topics that come from the intersection between the technologies of vision,  the spatial configuration of the gaze and the body. Engaging with the cultural biases and  potentials of the body and its vision, her approach embraces the fragility and vulnerability of the  body and looks and looks at its capacity for creating alliances that do not homogenize but affirm  differences. 

Ivana holds a BFA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Skopje (2015) and MFA in Visual  Arts from the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy (2018/2019). 

Her most recent works and artistic engagements include: artist book “At an angle of 45 degrees”  published by Studio Private Print, “Notes From Surfacing: At an Angle of 45 Degrees” at Studio  Private Print (2021), “Medium Crevice: Alternative Set of Footholds for Climbing” at Gallery Ko Ra, Skopje (2021), including collaborative projects such as: Swimming in the Sticky Lake at  YCC Gallery, Skopje (2021) and Thresholds of Nobody in Particular YCC Gallery, Skopje (2020)  Her work has been shown in the context of Supernova Regeneration Festival, Denver, USA  (2021); Dislocations, Scottish Graduate School for the Arts and Humanities (2021); Youth  Biennial Belgrade, Serbia (2021); Fuori Visioni Festival 6| Tra muro e confine-Atto I e II,  Piacenza, Italy (2020-2021); The Biennial of Young Artists, MOCA- Skopje (2021) and others. 

Throughout her practice and research, Ivana often collaborates with different allies, from a  variety of disciplines and practices. She is involved in on-going collaborations with Elena  Chemerska, Ishjan Twin, Natasha Nedelkova, Amir Karahasan and Kula Collective among  others. 

Notes on Free Improvisation, Emily Barresi, 11 min 52 sec SYNOPSIS: 

When I moved to New London, I started hanging around and collaborating with musicians in  town. Real noise freaks. It was at a warehouse show that I experienced Luke’s improvisational  set for the first time. Synapses began firing in my brain at such a speed, I lost track of who and  why I was. Images and phrases surfaced from the last months and years of my life at random. I  white-knuckle gripped my knees. There was no pattern recognition, no reason or logic to  contend with. You simply hung onto a note, a thought, as it passed you by. I saw them play a  couple more times and each set, I was more floored than the last. This piece came about in an  effort to share that cacophony of sound and experience.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: 

Emily Barresi is a photographer and experimental filmmaker from Connecticut. Drawing from  her family’s theatrical and motion-picture background, she perceives even the most monotonous  human experience as a vibrant mess. Through collaborations with community members and  friends, she delves into magical realism on a local scale, aiming to uncover shared aspects of  dreams, fears, and survival. Her photographic work has been exhibited both nationally and  internationally and she has created on-site video installations in several group exhibitions at  spaces including UTA Artist Space in Los Angeles, and David Zwirner Gallery, New York. Emily  holds a M.F.A from Yale University and currently works as a cinematographer on independent  projects throughout the Northeast. 

Artist website: www.emilybarresi.com 

Social: @embarresi

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