Horaizon, Meggy Rustamova, 2021, 11’ (première)

In times where the ecological confrontation between nature and humans has reached a point of no return, many scientists suggest that current events are a result of human intrusion into nature, occupying too much space on this planet. As millions of people inhabit big cities, we tend to forget how important nature and landscapes are for human sanity. In Horaizon, tourists travel across borders in search for sublime landscapes, while paradoxically leaving a footprint that inevitably destroys these wonders of nature. The film is shot in different locations throughout the world: Belgium, Iceland, Arizona and New York amongst others. The horizons, sunsets and weather conditions between these places form the common thread of the film.

Ritual, Paulius Sliaupa, 2020, 6’49”

Ritual introduces an alternative fragile relationship with the world. The character moves slowly in an empty field surrounded by vertical branch drawings that remind us of human figures and archaic structures. She adapts and nurtures an alternative society that has the potential to become a forest.

Prossimo, Emanuele Dainotti, 2020, 4’20’’

A peasant family is vaccinating its animals. A spillover event occurs when a reservoir population with a high prevalence of pathogens comes into contact with a new host population. 

Where there is no point, Florinda Ciucio & Aisha Adepoju, 2016, 8’

Where there is no point deals with the perception of the sea by people who crossed it, aiming for a better future. After the difficulties people faced on the sea, do they look at it in a different way?

The screening will be followed by a conversation with filmmaker Meggy Rustamova and curator Dagmar Dirkx (in English)

WHO?

Meggy Rustamova (°1985), born in Tbilisi, Georgia, lives and works in Brussels and Sint-Niklaas, Belgium. She obtained her Master’s degree in visual arts at KASK, Ghent (2006-2011), studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin (2010) and accomplished the postgraduate course at HISK (2012-2013). Over the past few years, Meggy Rustamova has developed an interdisciplinary oeuvre consisting of photographic works, videos, installations and performances. Her work offers a distinctly poetic look at the relationship between individual and collective memory, between language as communication and visual vocabulary. She searches for ways to translate contemporary social tendencies and issues into her own work, often by means of microhistories. The beauty of her often optimistic-looking images hides a certain melancholy or desire for utopia. Through the universal language of image, Florinda Ciucio (Belgium, 1993) searches for a common understanding beyond the barriers of culture and identity. She mostly works with documentary images and observations of everyday situations and encounters.

Aisha Adepoju was born in Germany (1995) and studied documentary film at RITCS in Brussels. Photography, illustrations and images from daily life are important sources of inspiration for her work. Her research on media brings her to explore new and more interactive ways to approach the social and artistic worlds.

Paulius Šliaupa, born in Vilnius, Lithuania (1990), holds a BA in painting and an MFA in contemporary sculpture from the Vilnius Academy of Arts as well as an MFA in media arts from KASK, Ghent. His works explore the relationships between culture and nature; the interaction of ambience and light that affect our daily lives. From video installations and experimental film to objects and paintings, his work encompasses a wide range of artistic media.

Emanuele Dainotti (Italy, 1987) is an artist and filmmaker whose work has been exhibited and awarded in many exhibitions and film festivals such as Museum of the Moving Image (USA), Louvre Museum (France); FIVAC (Cuba), Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Rencontres Internationales Paris (France) among others. He currently lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium.

Dagmar Dirkx (°1993) studied art history at the KU Leuven, Belgium. Dagmar wrote reviews and essays for De Witte Raaf, Metropolis M and rekto:verso. As an author and art historian, she is regularly commissioned by artists and cultural institutions such as STUK Huis voor Dans, Beeld en Geluid or CIAP Kunstverein. As a research curator, Dagmar is conducting an art historical research project on video art in Belgium during the seventies for ARGOS centre for audiovisual arts in Brussels.