ReCNTR, ArteEast & LIMA present: A Grain of Sand in the Mountain’s Belly | 28 March 2023 | 20:00 | LAB111, Amsterdam
We are delighted to team up once again with LIMA, and this time with ArteEast, for this screening curated by Nat Muller! The programme features several works by Jumana Emil Abboud who is our special guest for the week.
When and where
Date & Time: Tuesday 28 March 2023 | 20:00
Location: LAB 111, Amsterdam (LAB2)
Price: 7,50 euros | students 5,00 euros | Cineville
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the artists. The evening will conclude with the opportunity to catch up at LAB111’s cafe in attendance of the curators and the artists.
About the programme
The programme revolves around the weird, dark, supernatural, and fantastical, and presents works from the ArteEast archive and network, as well as the LI-MA collection. It looks at how these — often under-explored — modes of the strange narrate complex historical, geo-political and socio-cultural realities, while opening an imaginary world of speculation and possibility. Through the enchanted otherworldliness of the spirit world, expanding universes, understated dread, and the coming to life of that what should remain petrified, these films not only mash up conceptions of time and space, but also blur the boundaries between human and nonhuman, life and nonlife.
The works in the programme travel through colonial pasts, extractivist presents, and improbable futures, rendering time and geography fluid and haunted. Landscapes, in the form of forests and waterways, deserts and mountains, become animate. While there is always a suggestion of looming catastrophe and implied violence lurking underneath, there is also an immense sense of potential. A grain of sand slumbers in the mountain’s belly, patiently waiting to transform into something else.
Jumana Emil Abboud, Giovanni Giaretta, Anika Schwarzlose & Brian D McKenna will be present for a Q&A after the screening.
I feel nothing (Jumana Emil Abboud, 2012, 8min)
Then Came Dark (Marie-Rose Osta, 2021, 15min)
Turtles All the Way Down (Basim Magdy, 2009, 10min)
The Sailor (Giovanni Giaretta, 2017, 8min)
UNEARTH – In Between States of Matter (Anika Schwarzlose & Brian D McKenna, 2021, 18min)
I feel everything (Jumana Emil Abboud, 2020-22, 8min)
A Grain of Sand in the Mountain’s Belly is co-presented by ArteEast, LI-MA and ReCNTR. This screening is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents nearly 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. Part 1 of this program is screened online on artearchive.org from 23 March – 2 April 2023. Part 2 is screened online on artearchive.org from 13 – 23 April 2023.
About Nat Muller
Nat Muller, PhD, is an independent curator, writer and academic living in Amsterdam. She completed her AHRC-funded PhD Lost Futurities: Science Fiction in Contemporary Art from the Middle East at Birmingham City University in 2022. Nat is an expert in contemporary art from the Middle East and curated the Danish pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale, showing Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour. She has curated shows at major venues, including Eye Film Museum Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, The Mosaic Rooms in London and ifa Gallery in Berlin.
About LIMA
LIMA is an international pioneer and centre of expertise in the fields of archiving, preservation, and distribution of media art. LIMA represents artists and supports them in the presentation and development of new work. In collaboration with museums, artists, academies, and universities, LIMA researches and develops services and tools for makers and institutions, as well as methods and practices for dealing with digital art thoughtfully and sustainably. LIMA also preserves the memory of Dutch media art through its digital repository and conservation services.
About ArteEast
Since its founding in 2003 as a NY-based film collective specializing in Middle Eastern film programming, ArteEast has become a leading organization advocating for and supporting artists from the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region engaging with U.S.-based arts communities and audiences. Through public programming, strategic partnerships, dynamic online publications, and film platforms, ArteEast serves as a bridge, facilitating the interaction of the public with, and amplifying the voices of, artists, curators, filmmakers, and arts thought leaders from the SWANA region and its diaspora.
Image credit: Giovanni Giaretta, The Sailor, 2017.
