WE ARE HERE: Artists Moving Image from the British Council Collection and LUX.

WE ARE HERE: Artists’ Moving Image from the British Council Collection and LUX is a series of moving image programmes presented as compilations and installations of artist films, created by some of UK’s most outstanding contemporary emerging and established artists. Artspace Aotearoa presents four compilations from the series to screen for their summer cinema programme. The artists featured use forms of biography, documentary, poetry and fiction as strategies to provoke new perspectives and discourse around issues of memory, national identity, marginality and intimacy. WE ARE HERE was curated by Tendai John Mutambu for the British Council, the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, and LUX, an international arts agency that supports and promotes artists' moving image practices. Each of the four artist film compilations screen for either two or three weeks, during which each will interrogate a specific theme.

Artists include - Noor Afshan Mirza (fka Karen Mirza) & Brad Butler, Ayo Akingbade, Duncan Campbell, Luke Fowler, Beatrice Gibson, Callum Hill, Susan Hiller, Ursula Mayer, Naeem Mohaiemen, Rosalind Nashashibi, The Otolith Group, Morgan Quaintance, Stephen Sutcliffe, Rehana Zaman.

Tendai John Mutambu is a writer, curator, and film programmer currently based between Bristol and London. Recent projects include: Artist in Focus: Marwa Arsanios for Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival, UK (2019); Twenty-two hours at ICA London for the 62nd BFI London Film Festival, UK (2018); and Sriwhana Spong: A hook but no fish for Govett-Brewster Art Gallery/Len Lye Centre, NZ (2018). He has written for Runway Journal of Contemporary Art, Frieze, Ocula Magazine, the British Film Institute, LUX Moving Image, and several exhibition catalogues.

Screening Schedule

● THE SPACE BETWEEN

14 November 2020 - 28 November 2020
49 minutes 22 seconds

A compilation of works that embody film's ability to convey a range of views by using photography, archival material and sound.

Ursula Mayer, The Crystal Gaze, 2007, 8 minutes (LUX)

Noor Afshan Mirza (fka Karen Mirza) & Brad Butler, The Space Between, 2005, 12 minutes (LUX)

The Otolith Group, People to be Resembling, 2012, 21 minutes, 42 seconds (LUX)

Naeem Mohaiemen, Rankin Street, 1953, 2013, 7 minutes, 40 seconds (LUX)

● OLD WORLD ORDER / NEW WORLD ORDERS

1 December 2020 - 12 December 2020
65 minutes, 49 seconds

This curated film selection asks urgent questions about belonging and identity. While new constituencies form, and others are renewed, what then, can history teach us about the strength and fragility of collectivity, nationhood and internationalism?

Callum Hill, Crowtrap, 2018, 15 minutes (LUX)

Rosalind Nashashibi, The States of Things, 2000, 3 minutes, 18 seconds (British Council)

Luke Fowler, ENCEINDRE, 2018, 20 minutes, 41 seconds (LUX)

Morgan Quaintance, Another Decade, 2018, 26 minutes and 50 seconds (LUX)

● SONGS FROM A FORGOTTEN PAST

15 December 2020 - 15 January 2021
72 minutes, 41 seconds

Through themes of marginality and its representation, community, storytelling, world-building, and reframing of histories, these works remind us that among failed historical projects lies the potential for new visions of the future.

Ayo Akingbade, Street 66, 2018, 13 minutes (LUX)

Duncan Campbell, Arbeit, 2011, 39 minutes (LUX)

Susan Hiller, The Last Silent Movie, 2007, 20 minutes, 41 seconds (British Council)

● RADICAL INTIMACIES

19 January 2021 - 5 February 2021
59 minutes, 07 seconds

This compilation of films explores themes of performance, desire, and intimacy to celebrate diverse identities, sexualities and gender from intergenerational perspectives.

Beatrice Gibson, I hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead, 2018, 20 minutes (LUX)

Rehana Zaman, Sharla Shabana Sojourner Selena, 2016, 22 minutes, 14 seconds (LUX)

Stephen Sutcliffe, Casting Through and Scenes from Radcliffe, 2017, 16 minutes, 53 seconds (LUX)

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WE ARE HERE: Artists’ Moving Image from the British Council Collection and LUX was curated by Tendai John Mutambu for the British Council and LUX.