A Question of Insurgency
In the seventh edition of the /si:n/ Festival in 2022, the question of insurgency will be made central to its theme. The programme includes video art film screenings, installations, and public performances, made by international, Arab and Palestinian artists to be exhibited across Palestine. The works challenge the obvious, break established creeds and hijack and open new perspectives through which to rethink the present moment. The works are established around solidarity, community, rebellion, equality, race and borders and provoke a new understanding of the role of individuals and communities in creating a more just, equal and peaceful world.
The festival is a collaboration between the A.M. Qattan Foundation (Ramallah) and Les Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques (Marseille), with seven partners: Magazine 28 (Rafah), the French Institute (Gaza), Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art (Jerusalem), Dar Al Sabbagh Diaspora Studies and Research Centre and Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research (Bethlehem), Tishreen (Tayibe) and the Ramallah Municipality.
The festival will tour six Palestinian cities in July: Ramallah, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Tayibe, Gaza and Rafah. In November, a Palestinian video art programme will travel to Marseille to be presented at the 35th Festival Les Instants Vidéo.
The /si:n/ Festival was established in 2009 by cultural and art institutions and was the first event of its kind in Palestine. Its goal is to create spaces for video art and performance exhibits and encourage new forms of vision and interaction. It seeks to challenge geographical, political and financial barriers and expand the festival’s geographical scope and public outreach to areas across Palestine. Partner institutions believe that Palestinian society should be part of international dialogue through artistic engagement.
“Nearly 60 years later, video art continues to deliver attraction and distance.
It moves away from the market criteria, jumps over artistic genius and the chef-d’oeuvre and fights cultural imperialism.
Art of the closeness, inherited from Fluxus, claims the indivisible links between art and everyday life.
‘We are suffocating among people who think they are absolutely right’, Camus would say. The goal is to debunk dominant discourse, insidious propaganda and the confinement of the arts in conventional rules and codes.
It is a moment of doubt and investigations.
It is time to confront the real in its complexity and contradictions.”
Les Instants Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques (Marseille)
Video Art Screening Programme
Part 1 - You Don’t Know Who We Are (40 minutes)
This video art programme invites exploration of power made inseparable from liberty and resistance.
Keywords: Discrimination, production of ‘truths’, alienation systems, other ideologies, no single power, deprivation of liberty
19th July | 18:00 | A.M. Qattan Foundation
20th July | 19:00 | Magazine 28
22nd July | 16:00 | Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research
22nd July | 18:30 | Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art
25th July | 19:30 | The Ottoman Courthouse
26th July | 19:45 | Tishreen
- Justus Lipsius
Miguel Rozas Balboa
2021 | 02:05 minutes | Chile
This projection divided into four monitors portrays the same journalist at different times of the day as he impatiently waits for his television cue. Humanity, fragility and insecurity are recognisable before delivering to the viewers a ‘truth’.
- 000109
Dasha Brian
2022 | 07:59 minutes | Poland
This experimental, sarcastic short film references an Orwellian dystopia.
The title of the project is an encryption of the date January 2009, when Viktor Sheiman was appointed Assistant to the President of Belarus for Special Assignments. The film portrays a ‘perfect citizen’ of Belarus, according to former president Lukashenko. Sheiman unconditionally fulfils presidential orders even the most cruel and illegal, and a parallel is drawn: they make systemic slaves out of Belarusians and take away their will to win.
- There...
Rojin Shafiei
2021| 07:00 minutes | Iran
There... refers to the current situation of Iran and its people, especially the middle class.
- The Keys of the Cadou House
Alessia Travaglini
2021 | 02:31 minutes | France
Where are the keys of my childhood?
- Too Big Drawing
Genadzi Buto
2021 | 05:13 minutes | Belraus
A drawing that extends beyond the paper and enters the real world.
- Uchronism
Daniel Locus
2021 | 06:19 minutes | Belgium
During the pandemic, someone is alone in their garden, playing with words, clichés and ideas.
- The Devil
Jean-Gabriel Periot
2012 | 07:51 minutes | France
Edited to a powerful and menacing song by the French band Boogers, images of African Americans in the 1950s-60s are portrayed in their struggles. Their political awakening takes shape in speeches and demonstrations and they capitalise on the momentum. Freedom is up for grabs and the metaphorical genie is out of the bottle. In the words of the singer of Boogers, “If you look upon my face, you are now watching the devil.” From this perspective, Whites project their fears, interpreting what Black people want and see their rebellion as a threat.
Part 2 - Don’t Free Me, I Will Take Care of That! (25 minutes)
Once upon a time, women overcame gender norms, the traditional distribution of roles, beauty standards, and the mental loads imposed on them because what they wanted above all was to create a new world—a world where they could be emancipated on an economic, social and cultural level. They led many fights and lived happily ever after.
19th July | 19:00 | A.M. Qattan Foundation
20th July | 15:00 | French Institute
22nd July | 16:30 | Dar Yusuf Nasri Jacir for Art and Research
22nd July | 19:00 | Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art
25th July | 20:30 | The Ottoman Courthouse
26th July | 20:45 | Tishreen
- Bounded by Routine and Duties
Agnieszka Niklewska
2013 | 01:39 minutes | Poland/United Kingdom
The inseparability of women and their thinking of duties, wherever she might be, is the crux of this piece. In the performance, a woman is both physically and mentally chained to objects, symbolising routine domestic duties.
- Through My Daughter’s Eyes
Adama Delphine Fawundu
2021 | 03:22 minutes | Belgium
What does it mean to be born and raised in a society with no representation of oneself?
- Iranshahr
Mahdi Kamranirad
2019 | 01:00 minute | Iran
About 40 girls of Iranshahr city were raped and fear telling anyone about it, including their families. Some families find out and tell their daughters that if they tell the police or legal authorities, they will kill them.
- Look at You, Black Sheep!
Milica Denkovic
2022 | 01:49 minutes | Serbia
The film is of the insults the author had received throughout her life. The insults include allusions to mental illnesses and gender-based body shaming, raising verbal abuse awareness by including insults against people of different genders and identities. The director is not part of some of these minority groups but nevertheless included them for their insulting nature.
- Cake d’Amour
Kika Nicolela
2017 | 03:00 minutes | Brazil/Belgium
In Cake d’Amour, a woman sings—and embodies—the recipe of a love cake. The song is taken from the French cult film Peau d’Âne by Jacques Demy.
- Olympe Said to Me: I Didn’t Lose My Head
Virginie Foloppe
2018 | 04:40 minutes | France
Olympe de Gouges’s blood did not coagulate. It flows in my veins. During her beheading on 3 November 1793, she declared: “The children of my country will avenge me.”
On January 21, 2017, during the women’s march, Angela Davis made a speech of resistance to those “who proclaim the supremacy of the hetero-patriarchal White man,” calling for an “inclusive and intersecting feminism” that invites all to join the resistance, with, among other things, art. The artist makes the connection between these two feminists with her body, beyond centuries and borders, while paying tribute to Helena Almeida, a Portuguese artist covered her face with paint in the mirror.
- Music for Waxing
Giulia Giannola
2021 | 02:14 minutes | Italy
Femininity, beauty and sweetness interpreted with a little irony. The dancers perform their beauty ritual by waxing to the rhythm of tango. The tango that accompanies this action is a rigorous sensuality constantly played down by the tearing of the waxing strips.
- The End
Lamathilde
2021 | 01:13 minutes | Canada
Even in the virtual world, the end of patriarchy seems impossible. This is a call to fight.
- My Mother’s Pain
Juliana Erazo
2020| 06:07 minutes | Netherlands
This animated feature documents three generations of mothers and daughters within a Colombian family, discussing their struggles to make their children’s lives better.
Performances
The Bubble
Denis Cartet
19th July | 20:30 | A.M. Qattan Foundation
22nd July | 20:00 | Al Ma’mal Foundation for Contemporary Art
23rd July | 20:00 | Dar Al Sabbagh Diaspora Studies and Research Centre
The Bubble is a live audio-video show projected onto a gigantic, inflated bubble screen. Denis Cartet, a VJ and film director, performs the final cuts of the film onstage.
The baseline of this performance directly echoes the geopolitical movements of non-aligned countries.
Cartet’s performance is a geo-poetical gesture that highlights the non-aligned movement.
This live show will be split into two parts: First part is based on historical and archival documents, highlighting the position of prominent non-aligned political figures, writers, poets and intellectuals. The second part will focus on musicians from non-aligned countries in the present day and the past.
Denis Cartet has directed six movies, which have been screened at many film festivals and won several awards. For 15 years, Denis has focussed his work within the Mediterranean. He is the founder and director of Digital Borax, a film and digital production structure (www.digitalborax.org). Since 1999, he has worked in the art practice of mixing images with live music. His visual creations have accompanied many musicians, focussing on electro and world music.
Sarah Violaine
When I Have Nothing More to Say . . .
26th July | 19:00 | Tishreen
When I Have Nothing More to Say . . . is a three-act production utilising video, text and live performance. It treats the body as a political weapon of protest and what it can represent through appearance. It is sometimes enough to be present and let labels and prejudices be put on it. If a body is a weapon, that means it is a danger—unwanted. The power of the non-act is present: the crucial moment when interpretation turns reality on its head.
The question of what a young performer of North African origin using her body for the sake of art—a body sexualised by its morphology—can represent, will be raised, as will be the notion of the non-act.
Sarah Violaine is a visual artist with a choreographic and theatrical background. Passionate about images and music, she integrates video and sound into her work. Her first work of research focussed on the links between animality and humanity, in which she released her experimental film Animality in 2014. She also created several exhibitions, installations and performances, the body remaining the primary medium of her work. In 2017, she released an electro EP under the pseudonym My Name Is Sacha that comprises live footage, clips and mixes. In 2020, she began researching the bionic body, a symbol of non-movement.
Three Video Installations in Gaza
French Institute
Sound of Montreal
Shahrzad Arshadi
2021 | 07:02 minutes | Quebec
Location: The French Institute
Sound of Montreal is a love letter to the city that the director feels deeply attached to. This short video memory documents the past twenty-some years of protests, action, solidarity, community and love in the streets of Montreal through sound and photography.
Waves Never Stop Crossing Borders
Élodie Merland
2019 | 13:25 minutes | France
This video was made on 30 October 2019 on a beach in Folkestone beach, United Kingdom—the eve of the UK’s scheduled departure from the European Union. This date represents the third rescheduling, but the exit date was eventually postponed until 31 January 2020. The reading direction of the sentence Waves Never Stop Crossing Borders is oriented towards France. This sentence evokes Brexit, but also speaks of all the borders that countless people are prohibited from crossing daily.
Trajectory 2
Cyril Galmiche
2019 | 03:30 minutes | France
Location: Magazine 28
Carried out in Japan during the Ohanami season, the Trajectory 2 project presents nine shots, each reproducing the same sequence of gestures. Filmed with a smartphone at different locations, the images were designed to be capsules of time and space, inviting the viewer to contemplate.
