SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER | 15:45 | SCREENING | IMAGE/WAR

Mykola Ridnyi conceptualizes the contemporary perception of an early 18th-century Ukrainian political and military leader. In the form of a rap battle, two major works of world literature associated with him are confronted: one by Lord Byron (1819) and the other by Pushkin (1828-29). Giulio Squillacciotti re-enacts the staging of photographs from the '20s. On the island of Pantelleria, bombed in 1943, Masbedo explores the tension in the local collective consciousness between truth and its ideological distortion. Kamal Aljafari films places from a vertical perspective that imposes control and possession on archaeological sites. Yet these places are not empty: from afar, we see peasants, themselves transformed into landscape. Dor Guez filmed Hippos, a historic basalt stone town, currently an archaeological site located between Syria and Israel. After military use, the now-abandoned town has seen the rebirth of flora and fauna once considered extinct. Twenty years after Akerman's film “d'Est”, Sid Yandovka and Anya Tsyrlina filmed Moscow. Their relationship with history, place and time haunts the spaces of memory and remembrance.

Mykola Ridnyi: The Battle over Mazepa | Video | 4k | colour | 0:26:43 | Ukraine /Germany, United Kingdom | 2023

“The Battle Over Mazepa” conceptualises the historical significance and contemporary perception of Ivan Mazeppa, a political and military leader of the Zaporizhian Sich and Left-bank Ukraine in the late-17th and early-18th century. Addressing codes of hip-hop culture, Ridnyi borrows the popular form of a rap battle to collide two great works of world literature associated with this historical figure: “Mazeppa” by Lord Byron in 1819 and “Poltava” by Alexander Pushkin in 1828–29. While Byron envisions Mazeppa as a romantic hero, seized by love, Pushkin portrays him as a traitor in accordance with the colonial attitude of the Russian Empire. Highlighting the confrontation of these two texts, Ridnyi invited four rappers from different national and cultural backgrounds to write and perform their response to the poets’ lyrics.

Biography

Mykola Ridnyi was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Currently he lives and works in Berlin where he holds a guest professorship for multimedia art at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). He is an author of films, photography series and installations in public space. His way of reflection social and political reality draws on the contrast between fragility and resilience of individual stories and collective histories. The body of his work created withing the last decade address the question of how to talk about violence and war but not multiply its brutality in the visual language.

Ridnyi's works has been shown in Venice biennial for contemporary art, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich, Centre for art and media in Karlsruhe, Transmediale in Berlin, Museums for contemporary art in Leipzig and Warsaw among the other places.

Giulio Squillacciotti: A War Play | Exp. fiction | 16mm | colour | 0:08:00 | Italy | 2024

Around 1920, a wealthy man from northern Italy returns from the First World War. Without having actively fought, neither having seen the blood of battle or an actual trench, he asks a group of people to stage for his camera scenes from the war as he imagined it. In 2024, four individuals are asked, in an attempt at freezing time, to didactically re-enact the scenes already staged in the 1920s photographs. In the corridors of a war museum housing a series of dioramas depicting war landscapes without figures, the endless cycle of the representation of war unfolds in an infinite suspended moment.

Biography

Giulio Squillacciotti is an artist and film-director born in Rome in 1982, living and working in Milan. After an education in Medieval Art History and Humanities in Rome and Barcelona, he studied Visual Arts at the University of Architecture in Venice. He was a fellow resident at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and one of the artists of the Dutch pavilion at the 2018 Architecture Biennale. His work is oriented mainly on the invention and mutation of traditions by merging together fiction and historical facts. Using film, documentary, sound and scenography, Squillacciotti produces research-based investigations that revisits history, crafting new stories from subjective perspectives, religion, language and popular culture.

He has made, among the others, documentaries on the Roman punk scene of the 1990s (“RMHC”, Italy 2012), on exorcism rituals in the Persian Gulf (“Archipelago”, Iran 2017), on cargo ships (“They Thought They Saw a Ghost”, Netherlands 2020), in Iraqi Kurdistan (“The Face That I Loved Let Me Down”, Iraq 2022) and fictional works written and shot in Austria, Ireland, the Netherlands, Turkey and other countries. He has edited collections of essays, fiction and poetry by foreign writers for the Dutch label Onomatopee and Arbor Editions. His writings and projects have been features in “Visual Ethnography Journal”, “Domus”, “Les œuvres de la voix”, Bruno Editions/Motto Berlin, Humboldt Books, Alla Carta, and other publishing labels. His latest project "What Has Left Since We Left" won the Italian Council Grant, Limburg Film Fonds, Sky Art/Arte Visione award and represented Italy at the Artist's Film International 2021 from the Whitechapel Gallery in London. He teaches at NABA University in Milan and has led workshops and talks at numerous European institutions.

His work has been exhibited and screened internationally at, among the others, the MUBI platform, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Les Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin at Centre Pompidou, Palais de Tokyo, Louvre Museum and Gaité Lyrique in Paris, the Berlin Haus der Kultur der Welt and Neue Berliner Kunstverein, Neues Museum in Weimar, Whitechapel Gallery in London, Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Screen Space and Monash Gallery in Melbourne, the Manifesta 8, Le Magasin CNAC in Grenoble, Cinema Akil in Dubai, the New York Photo Festival and Dumbo Video in New York City, the Art Institute of Boston, the Instant Image Hall and Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Ballroom Marfa in Texas, Het Nieuwe Instituut of Rotterdam, Istanbul 2010 European Capital of Culture and Istanbul Modern Museum, the Bonniers Konsthal in Stockolm, Fundacion Proa in Buenos Aires, CAC in Vilnius, the Beirut Art Centre in Lebanon, OCAT in Shanghai, the Ethnographic Museum in Belgrade and at numerous International Film Festivals; in Italy at PAC, Triennale Museum and ViaFarini in Milan, MACRO, MAXXI, and 16th Quadriennale in Rome, MAMbo and Cineteca in Bologna, the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin, GAMeC in Bergamo and at the Official Competition of the 33rd, 35th and 36th Torino Film Festival.

Masbedo: Pantelleria | Video | Digital | colour | 0:20:00 | Italy | 2022

Between 9 May and 11 June 1943, the island of Pantelleria was violently bombarded by the Allied troops in the first operation to reconquer Italian soil. Residents recall that, after the surrender, some of the buildings were blown up for the cameras of a propaganda combat film. “Pantelleria” traces the memories of this event in the local collective consciousness and looks at the contemporary implications of an episode that took place in the shadow of official history. Through a two-years long participatory process with the residents, the film explores the tension between the truth and its ideological distortion, and between the reality of the bombs and their telling through images. The Nervi hangar, a symbol of Mussolini’s militarisation of the island, is now shown empty and inhabited by a magical animal presence. Extracts from the combat film are projected onto the buildings of today’s Pantelleria, while the camera travels through the bunkers dug by the Italian army. The voiceover, written and read by writer Giorgio Vasta, gives expressive form to the island’s stories, while the sound by GUP Alcaro and Davide Tomat distorts the recordings of the local orchestra Spata, finding in dance music a space for the reactivation of the past, and liberation in the present.

Biography

MASBEDO is an artistic duo formed by Nicolò Massazza and Iacopo Bedogni. They have been working together since 1999 and they currently live in Milan and Piacenza (Italy). Different artistic languages such as video, installation, cinema, performance, theater, and sound design coexist in their work. They are interested in emotional and intense narratives that delve into the depths of human relationships and the complex subjectivity of the contemporary individual. They have identified the relationship between cinema and art as a preferred area of investigation, which they approach with an attentive gaze to both socio-anthropological elements and the most intimate and poetic ones.

MASBEDO’s works have been exhibited in international institutions such as: Manifesta 15 Barcelona; Centre Pompidou-Metz; CCCB Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona; Fondazione ICA Milan; MAMM Multimedia Art Museum Moscow; Manifesta12 Palermo; Hong Kong Arts Centre; Fondazione Merz; Leopold Museum Wien; MAXXI Rome; Centre Pompidou/Forum des Images Paris.

Among others, their short and feature films have been shown at: Venice International Film Festival; Locarno Film Festival; CPH:DOX; FIFA – Festival International du Film sur l’Art Montréal; Villa Medici Film Festival Rome; Sharjah Film Platform; Walter Reade Theater, Film Society of Lincoln Center, New York; Lo schermo dell’arte, Florence, Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin, IFFR-International Film Festival Rotterdam.

Kamal Aljafari: UNDR | Exp. film | hdv | colour and b&w | 0:15:00 | Germany / Palestine | 2024

The camera's eye returns obsessively to the same places, a vertical perspective that imposes control, the possession of archaeological sites, stones lying for thousands years in the desert. The places it observes, however, are not deserted: we see, as if glimpsed from afar, the peasants working the land, themselves transformed into landscape. Something disturbs the stillness of the place: explosions on land and in the sea prepare the ground for new cities with new names, new forests. This landscape is transformed into a scenography of appropriation.

Biography

Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari studied at the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln and currently lives in Berlin. He has taught filmmaking at The New School (New York) and the DFFB (Berlin). He is a fellow at the Institute for Ideas and Imagination of Columbia University. In May 2024, IndieLisboa dedicated a retrospective to his work. In 2024 his film “UNDR” was selected at IFFR and “A Fidai Film” at Visions du Réel, where it won the Grand Jury Prize Burning Lights Competition. Aljafari is currently working on a fiction film to be shot in Jaffa.

Dor Guez: Hippos | Video | 4k | colour | 0:08:00 | Palestine / United Kingdom | 2022

“Hippos”(“Qalâat Al-Husan”) was filmed in Hippos on the shortest day of the year. Hippos, a historical basalt stone built city, is currently an archeological site located between Syria and Israel. The now abandoned city, since its military use, has seen a revival of flora and fauna previously considered extinct. The soundtrack of the video work was composed by recordings of the females from a rare bat species as they navigate at night looking for prey above the basalt city. The movement of light and camera throughout the video varies in cadence, evoking gun turrets scanning for a target, navigation devices, or the frantic commotion of a battlefield. The work also includes the most prominent first modern maps of Palestine that were made by German researcher Gottlieb Schumacher, dating back to 1885.

Biography

Dor Guez Munayer is a Jaffa-based artist and educator exploring themes of race, displacement, and memory through diverse mediums, including photography, video, installations, sculpture, and performance. Born in Jerusalem into a Palestinian family from Lydda and Jewish immigrants from North Africa, Guez's work interrogates the intersection of these identities, revealing how personal narratives often interact with dominant historical accounts. For over 20 years, Guez has focused on archival research and photographic practices, mapping traces of change and disruption in landscapes. His recent overview, "'Catastrophe," at the Museum of Modern Art Bogota, exemplifies his commitment to community engagement and ongoing studies of the Middle East and North Africa.

Since 2006, Guez's studio has initiated several community and educational ongoing initiatives, including the CPA (Christian-Palestinian Archive). The archive originated with Munayer’s family photo albums from Palestine, as well as from communities in cities such as Lydda, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Gaza, Ramallah, and Amman, reflecting the interconnected histories of these locations. Moreover, since 2018 Guez serves as the Director of the 'SeaPort: Mediterranean Curatorial Residency Program', a project that fosters the exchange of ideas among curators working across the Mediterranean region. In 2023, Guez's studio inaugurated the 'Samira Munayer Scholarship Program,' aimed at promoting and supporting higher education for female Palestinian art students.

In his multimedia performances, Guez transforms art into a vehicle for storytelling, utilizing historical photographs and objects to weave together narratives of the past century in his homeland—one of the most photographed regions globally. By connecting public and private archives, he examines the complex colonial projections that shape his homeland's identity. Guez's performances have taken place at prestigious institutions, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey, the American Colony Archive in Jerusalem, and the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin.

Exhibitions

Guez's work has been displayed in over 60 solo exhibitions worldwide at notable institutions, including Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico City (2023), Felix Nussbaum Museum in Osnabrück (2023), Princeton University Art Museum in New Jersey (2022), MAMBO: Museum of Modern Art in Bogota (2022), Kunst im Kreuzgang in Bielefeld (2021), and Futura Gallery in Prague (2020). His exhibitions also include the American Colony Archive in Jerusalem (2019), MAN Museum in Nuoro (2018), DEPO in Istanbul (2017), Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem (2017), Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit (2016), Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (2015), Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv (2015), Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University in Massachusetts (2013), Artpace in San Antonio (2013), The Mosaic Rooms at the A.M. Qattan Foundation in London (2013), KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin (2010), and Petach Tikva Museum of Art (2009).

Guez has participated in group exhibitions at a variety of institutions, including Kunstmuseum Bonn (2023), The Jewish Museum in New York (2021), Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin (2020), Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg (2019), Musée des Beaux-Arts in France (2018), and MODEM Museum in Hungary (2018). His work has also been featured at Brown University in Providence, (2017), Arab World Institute in Paris (2017), CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, (2017), UNTREF Museum in Buenos Aires (2016), and the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (2016). Other notable exhibitions include the North Coast Art Triennial in Denmark (2016), Weatherspoon Art Museum in Greensboro, North Carolina (2015), and the 17th, 18th, and 19th International Contemporary Art Festival Videobrasil in São Paulo (2011, 2013, 2015). Additionally, he has exhibited at the 8th Berlin Biennale for Contemporary Art (2014), Cleveland Institute of Art (2014), Triennale Museum in Milano (2014), Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun (2014), Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography (2014), Maxxi Museum in Rome (2013), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2012), the 12th Istanbul Biennial (2011), and the Museum of Modern Art in Ljubljana (2010). To date, nine books have been published internationally about Guez's practice. Publishers include Kerber Verlag, Distanz, New England Press, and A.M Qattan Foundation.

Guez's works are a part of substantial public collections, including Tate Modern London, Center Pompidou Paris, Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, LACMA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Princeton University Art Museum, The Jewish Museum New York, Rose Art Museum, FRAC collection Marseille, Museum of Modern Art Bogota, and more.

Dor Guez Muanyer is represented by Dvir Gallery, Paris/Brussels/Tel Aviv, Goodman Gallery, London/Johannesburg/Cape Town/ New York, and Carlier-Gebauer Gallery, Berlin/Madrid.

Anya Tsyrlina, Sid Iandovka: Colder | Exp. documentary | 4k | colour | 0:09:00 | Switzerland / Italy | 2024

Filmed in Moscow twenty years after Akerman’s “D’Est” and over ten years ago, “Colder” addresses the deep conundrums of memory, place, and time. A camera locks on to past glories, lingers, skittishly- its tonalities are sombre, non metaphoric, obscure and difficult. Iandovka and Tsyrlina’s cinematic approach to memory is closer, more intimate, and more unstable and problematic—more true—to notions of remembrance than other sorts of cinematic representations. An almost graspable (post)cinematic spatiality - a space both interior (subjective and singular) and exterior (collective, communal) overcomes us - complete with an apparitional trace that haunts memory and event alike. “Colder” opens the unstable spaces of memory to confront the presence/non-presence of events and our complicated and difficult relations to our histories and our selves.

Biography

Sid Iandovka and Anya Tsyrlina (both born and bred in Novosibirsk, USSR) are visual artists often working together on film and video.

An exhibition ("Once in a Hundred Years" with Leslie Thornton & Thomas Zummer) was dedicated to them in 2024 at the Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg and Lumiar Cité, Lisbon.

Over the past two decades they have developed a body of work that draws on the afterlife of experimental film, anachronic collages from Soviet archives, and the last vestiges of obscure underground music scenes, creating singular film objects in which hauntological detachment meets unbound proto-punk sensibility. “Sid and Anya make a window onto a world of magical melancholy, where they are able to combine scathing cynicism with cringeworthy humor, lyrical beauty, and cultural critique into one seething mass of fits and starts, along with protracted meditations on the ordinary, the sublime and the hollowness that penetrates a history and a society. They dance across dreams and nightmares that become dreams and nightmares again and again, – and at the same time show us how it’s being done. We literally see the machinery at work, the digital surface and interior that cycle through this performance of sadness and joy, so that the viewer has little to do but also see, to keep seeing, because there is always this divine instability, and that keeps things alive.” (Leslie Thornton)