Screening: aCinema Summer Screening Series Sunday, July 21st at 5PM

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.

Sunday July 21st, Full Program at 7PM:

Contessalations (TRT approx 57 min)

Who Has Seen The Wind, Panu Johansson, 4 min 59 sec

SYNOPSIS:

How does it feel to live next to 170 year old creatures? This short impressionistic film documents an old forest area called “Mortin männikkö” in Rovaniemi, Northern Finland. As an array of glimpses and moments the film tries to summarise a decade of life next to this vivid j& forested tableau vivant.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Panu Johansson is a media artist and an experimental filmmaker from Finland. He works with moving image, photography and sound. His works have been exhibited in various festivals, exhibitions and microcinemas since the year 2000. Reoccurring themes in Johansson's work are memories, landscape and cultural history. When working with moving image he prefers analogue film, though he is open to all materials. Johansson collects images and sounds eagerly and also likes to use "found footage” materials whenever possible. His works could be described with terms such as landscape film, diary film or personal film.

The Future Can be only for Ghosts, Anahita Norouzi, 7 min 14 sec

SYNOPSIS:

Over the course of a lengthy and meticulously documented investigation, the artist has reconstructed the history of an archaeological fragment from the ruins of the Achaemenid palace of Persepolis, in Iran, which was looted from the site in 1936, acquired by a Canadian museum in the early 1950s, stolen, rediscovered and finally returned to its country of origin – only to inexplicably disappear again.

This short video, remotely directed by the artist, was illicitly filmed by a cinematographer friend. It was important for this film to be shot in late March when Persepolis is adorned with vibrant greenery, which lasts for only two weeks before the scorching sun dries it up. The sound piece that accompanies the video is composed by the Iranian musician Sina Shoaei, who lives in Tehran.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Anahita Norouzi’s practice examines the notions of displacement, memory and identity from a psycho-historical perspective. Intending on illustrating the effects of colonialism on the contemporary world, she unearths forgotten stories, directing her attention particularly to botanical heritage and archaeological excavations. Her approach, based on the reappropriation of her own history, draws parallels between the migration of people, plant species and cultural artefacts, revealing how varying geopolitical interests can transform our perception of reality. Interweaving past and present, here and elsewhere, individual and collective, her works question the links between culture and politics in an era of globalization.

Born in Tehran in 1983, Anahita Norouzi is a multidisciplinary artist active in Montréal since 2018. She holds a BA in art and graphic design from Sooreh University in Tehran and an MFA from Concordia University. Her work has been exhibited on numerous occasions in Canada and abroad, notably at London’s Royal College of Art and in Buenos Aires at BIENALSUR, the International Biennial of Contemporary Art of the South. More recently, she has shown at Montreal Museum of Contemporary Arts and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. In 2021, she received a creation prize from the Grantham Foundation for the Arts and the Environment,

and in 2022 was awarded an Impressions Residency by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. She is the recipient of Contemporary Art Prize of Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec and finalist for the 2023 edition of the prestigious Sobey Art Award.

Eventual Horizon, Elise Guillaume, 9 min 35 sec

SYNOPSIS:

Filmed in the Arctic, Eventual Horizon threads together the artist’s experience of insomnia, grief, and hope. This viscerally engaging film draws a parallel between the experience of mourning a loved one and ecological degradation. Perceiving grief as an active element of hope, Eventual Horizon focuses on the transformative and healing power of these states. The film’s soundscape was created from a variety of Arctic field recordings, including the sound of ice melting using a hydrophone.

Research & Development in the Arctic was facilitated by The Arctic Circle - Artists & Scientist Residency and supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

With the support of Sustainable Art, a contribution was made towards the project Urban Forest which went towards the plantation of a Miyawaki forest in a school in Grez-Doiceau, Belgium.

Written, Directed and Produced by Elise Guillaume

Production - Espace Croisé, Centre d’Art Contemporain

With the support of Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts contemporains

Consulting Producers - Chloe Abrahams, Marie de Ganay

Cinematography, Editing, Sound & Narration - Elise Guillaume

Additional Cinematography - John Janssens, Edouard Outters

Colour Grading - John Janssens

Sound Mix & Additional Sound - Mélia Roger

Sound Assistant - Luc Aureille

Special Thanks - Marius Atumulesei, Sergei Chernikov, Olivia Crowe, Jeremy Chen, Sarah Gerats, Jekyll n' Hyde, Tuomas Kauko, Laura Mené, Inês Neto Dos Santos, Patricia Petersen, regiment, Robin Wattiaux, JungEun Yang.

The estimated carbon footprint of Eventual Horizon is 4.72 tonnes CO2e. Calculations were accounted by Iris Beswick at Earthly. The scope can be found here.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Elise Guillaume (1996) is a Belgian artist whose work explores our complex relationship with nature. Her work is situated at the intersection of psychology, ecology, and concepts of care. Through audiovisual, photographic, and sonic mediums, sometimes manifested as immersive

installations, Elise Guillaume is interested in the relationships between psychological health and environmental change. The body is a key element in her work: it becomes a vessel for interpreting the interconnections between the beings that form our world. In her often intimate works, Elise Guillaume explores the possibilities for a renewed relationship with the earth.

Early 2024, Elise Guillaume was selected for the "EMBracing the Ocean" artist-in-residence programme organised by the European Marine Board, during which she will develop a sound project addressing the psychological impact of climate change and the therapeutic potential of ocean sounds. In 2023, the artist was selected for the Arctic Circle residency and held a solo exhibition at the Espace Croisé, Contemporary Art Center. In 2022, Elise Guillaume graduated

from the Royal College of Art (MA Contemporary Art Practice) and received a research and development grant from the Arts Council England. That same year, the artist was a finalist for the Aesthetica Art Prize and winner of the Art Nova Prize at the Arte Laguna Art Prize. Her works have been presented internationally on numerous occasions, including LMNO Gallery (2023, BE), Gasworks (2023, GB), KIKK Festival (2021, BE), CICA Museum (2021, KR), Imagine Science Film Festival (2022, USA), and at the Centre Wallonie Bruxelles / Paris (2022-23, FR).

The Barrel, Katie McFadden, 10 min 27 sec

SYNOPSIS:

In this work of auto fiction an unnamed narrator transverses her memory of a local area. In doing so she unveils the lasting impressions of the past on the landscape, her journey culminating in a particularly horrifying local myth.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Katie McFadden is a filmmaker and artist from Donegal, Ireland. In 2019 she graduated from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology with a BA Hons in Visual Art, and was long listed for the RDS Prize. In 2020 she received the New Irish Creatives grant to produce her film ‘The Flickering Light’ which screened at the Irish Embassy in Berlin. She has exhibited and screened works internationally at the Station to Station film festival, Zollamt Galerie, Galerie HBK Saar, Roheline Saal Tallinn, IMMA, Docs Ireland, most recently her short film ‘The Barrel’ premiered at Belfast Film Festival. She has recently completed a masters in film studies at Queen's University Belfast and resides between Donegal and Belfast.

Her work is often concerned with the idea of landscape as a receptacle for human ideas, allowing the work to reflect on the influence of the past on our cultural memory and identity. Through the medium of film she creates dialogue between the seen and unseen, transforming urban, rural and digital environments into sites for introspection.

Des lignes pour colorier l’intérieur (Lines to color within), Matthew Wolkow, 6 min 23 sec

SYNOPSIS:

EXT. DAY. MONTREAL. / On the outskirts of the metropolitan highway, a Mediterranean fig tree stands. / Said Ficus carica, this tree is the work of a 60-year-old Montrealer of Argentine origin. / The miracle of a backyard where three regions of the world meet. / The story of an observation.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Driven by a curiosity for knowledge, Matthew Wolkow creates a cinema revealing the persons he meets and the stories that come along. Situated between essay and experimentation, rubbing the real, the imaginary, speech, words, music and sensorialities, his work benefits from this hybridity where form is approached as a resolution. In October 2021, the Cinémathèque québécoise screened his first retrospective.

interference pattern, Ramey Newell & Niccolò Bigagli, 8 min 36 sec SYNOPSIS:

Light. Sound. Matter. Intricate landscapes emerge from multitudinous overlapping waves of film and quantum physics. A collaborative film co-directed by filmmaker Ramey Newell and quantum

physics PhD candidate Niccolò Bigagli. Filmed on location in an Ultracold Quantum Matter lab at Columbia University in New York City

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Ramey Newell is a filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist who splits her time between British Columbia and Oregon. Her moving image work has been screened at film festivals and in galleries, museums and other art spaces throughout the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; Alchemy Moving Image Festival in Hawick, Scotland; Antimatter in Victoria, BC; and many others. Ramey’s experimental films have also earned accolades such as the Jury’s Stellar Award (Grand Prize) at Black Maria Film Festival (2018), Best Director at Mirror Mountain Film Festival (2017), Ausience Award at Kinoskop Experimental Film Festival (2023), and the Symbiosis Jury Prize at Imagine Science Film Festival (2022).

Niccolò Bigagli, originally from Florence, Italy, is a PhD student in quantum physics at Columbia University in the Will Lab. His work focuses on the study of the fundamental constituents of matter, atoms and molecules, at the coldest temperatures physically attainable. He aims to gain enough insight into the building blocks of our world to refine our ability to control them and our understanding of quantum mechanics. This is his first film.

To Keep the Mountain at Bay, Gelare Khoshgozaran, 9 min 30 sec SYNOPSIS:

Using poetry and prose excerpts with footage shot in California and Caucasus Mountains, To Keep the Mountain at Bay is an homage to Etel Adnan. Through fragmented images and words the film attempts to map exile as a potential space of collectivity and transnational solidarity, against the passivity of nostalgia and assimilationist propaganda.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY:

Gelare Khoshgozaran is an undisciplinary artist and filmmaker whose work engages with the legacies of imperial violence manifested in war, militarization and borders. They use film and video to construct peripheral narratives that seek to redefine existing constructions of ‘home’ as a means of approaching new conceptualizations of belonging. Khoshgozaran has presented their work internationally, with recent exhibitions and screenings at MoMA Doc Fortnight, Delfina Foundation, Images Festival, EMPAC, MASS MoCA and the Hammer Museum. With a BFA in Photography from University of Arts in Tehran (2009), and an MFA from University of Southern California (2011), they are assistant professor of New Genres at the UCLA Department of Art.

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