(2020-2021) 02:17 mins

Selected by Fundacion Proa, Buenos Aires

In the film Torontoides, a group of people dive nude into the ‘unknown’, entrusting their lives to the rest of the team.

Through this repetitive act, artists Julia Sbriller and Joaquín Wall, in collaboration with Roco Corbould, image how to travel through an inner passage of the Earth, defying the laws of gravity and matter so far known, in order to unite the opposite poles of the planet to through an ‘intra-terrestrial channel’.

The short film reflects on the body that contains us and the wider mysteries of the planets, hemispheres and its magnetic fields.

Sbiller and Wall’s work centers around the possibilities of the human being to collectively connect with each other and individually (un)identify and transform itself.

Artist Q&A 

Where are you from and how did you become interested in moving image work?
We are a multidisciplinary nomadic duo from Argentina and we are interested in video as a media that drives us into imagining actions and

spaces, as a way to create, experience and register our own imaginary realities. Video, as a moving image, translates perfectly the feeling we aim to create both for the spectators and the participants in the production of each piece.

What inspired/influenced you to make the work?
For Torontoides, we were particularly inspired by the torus and a new potential connection between both hemispheres of the Planet. In geometry, torus is a surface of revolution generated by a closed curve rotating around an axis. The torus is said to be the only energetic pattern that can sustain itself and that is made of the same substance as its environment. With Torontoides, we wanted to sculpt the planet into a huge toroid, from Argentina (where the piece was produced) to Canada, (where it was firstly shown).

We were also inspired by the possibilities of visually challenging the physical properties between the liquid and the solid, gravity and non-newtonian surfaces. We are always thinking about the body that contains us: the planet, its hemispheres, its magnetic fields and its mysteries.

What are you working on at the moment?
We are working on a new series about an intuitive approach to the telepathic property of water and the urge of creating huge sorbet (water based ice-cream) sculptures. We also are imagining a series of houses based on retro-futuristic water tanks we’ve been scouting around.

Julia Sbriller (1986, La Plata, Argentina) & Joaquin Wall (1986, La Plata, Argentina) are a multidisciplinary duo based in Argentina. Their work,

essentially hybrid and experimental, draws on a variety of mediums, including performance, architecture, sculpture, choreography, video and installation.

Their work has been exhibited in Swab Barcelona Art Fair (ES), Buenos Aires Photo (AR), Fundación Proa, Buenos Aires (AR), Munar Arte, Buenos Aires (AR), Art Gallery of Burlington, Ontario (CA), Bendita Tu Fest, Barcelona (ES). Julia and Joaquin are currently represented by Quimera Galería, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

(2020) 20:00 mins

Selected by GAMeC, Bergamo, Italy

On February 7th 1992, the Treaty on European Union was signed in the Dutch city of Maastricht. Decades later, the representatives of the last three countries left in Europe meet again in the very same room where it was signed, this time to deliberate on the permanent shutdown of their Union. In what seems to be a looped therapy session, the three characters - helped by a British interpreter as a self-appointed analyst - try to deal with their feeling of loss. The conversation allows their political and personal bonds to be woven together metaphorically, compelling them to face their identity crisis and acknowledge what no longer is, what is left and what still can be of that Union.

Artist Q&A 

Where are you from and how did you become interested in moving image work? 
GS: I was born in Rome and I live between the Netherlands and Italy. I got into moving image from photography and the necessity of translating into sound, movement and storytelling possible narratives.

What inspired/influenced you to make the work? 
GS: The need of allegorising major European issues into kinship metaphors put into word said by improbable politicians during a sort of collective therapy session

What are you working on at the moment?
GS: I am working on a monologue for a theatre play taken out of the film, this time the protagonist will be the feelings of the interpreter called to translate that day in which Europe ended.

Giulio Squillacciotti (Rome, Italy 1982) is an artist and film-maker, lives and works in Maastricht and Milan.

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 and popular culture. He holds a BA in Medieval Art History and earned a MA in Visual Arts from The Architecture University of Venice. He was Residency Fellow at the Jan Van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands.

(2020) 12:11 mins

Selected by Bag Factory, Johannesburg

Thania Petersen grew up understanding the old Malay word kassaram to mean a “big mess” or things being ‘out of place’ or ‘upside down’.

She writes: ‘The mess begins when you realize that, as much as you can trace our ancestry from the Cape, South Africa to Indonesia, you can undoubtedly link us to many other countries and people from all over Africa, Asia, and Europe as well. The complexity of this story, however, does not form part of our cultural identity: we are simply described as ‘Cape Malays’ and have been deliberately Orientalized, erasing all of our African heritage and permanently cementing us as the Other. In a landscape built to mirror Europe but defiantly remaining “African,” to be “Malay” means to not belong. Too African to be Asian and too Asian to be African.

Petersen’s film Kassaram interrogates the artistic strategies historically used by European colonial forces to demarcate oppressive hierarchies of people in South Africa. It highlights how present-day imperialist agendas perpetuate these practices by continuing to impose contemporary “orientalist” views onto diverse communities worldwide.

Thania Petersen is a multi-disciplinary artist who uses photography, performance, and installation to address the intricacies and complexities of her identity in contemporary South Africa. Petersen’s reference points sit largely in Islam and in creating awareness about its religious, cultural, and traditional practices. She attempts to unpack contemporary trends of Islamophobia through her analysis of the continuing impact of colonialism, European and American imperialism, and the increasing influence of right-wing ideologies. Threads in her work include the history of colonialist imperialism in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, as well as the social and cultural impact of westernized consumer culture. Her work is also informed by her Cape Malay heritage and the practice of Sufi Islamic religious ceremonies. 

Petersen studied at Central Saint Martin’s College of Art in London. In 2018, Petersen held her solo exhibition IQRA at WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town. She has hosted additional solo exhibitions in 2016 at the AVA, Cape Town and in 2017 at the Everard Read Gallery, Cape Town. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions both locally and abroad, including Radical Love at the Ford Foundation, New York (2019) and Present Passing: South by Southeast at the Osage Art Foundation, Hong Kong (2019). Petersen was awarded the Thami Mnyele Residency in Amsterdam in 2019.