Najrin Islam: Absent(ed) Images
Adwoa Owusu-Barnieh: Akinola Davies Jr.'s Rapt
Lucy Peters II: A Trick of the Light/Señor Internet
Lucy Peters I: Zodiac x Four Chambers
The London Short Film Festival emerged with a provocative collaboration of curation between Zodiac Film Club and female-led erotic production company Four Chambers, suitably screened in the experimental centrifuge of the ICA.
Shakara: Response
I. Welcome to the TerrorDomeThat tick tick ticking metronomeBides timeStories spoken stories toldAs we gather roundAncient magic amongst us growsWhere two or three are gathered in the midst I roamDivine takes form and expresses blessingsSpeaking truths embedded messageSteam levitating concretePutrid flesh perfuming city streetsVictory shy victims meet exchanging hymns in mundane speakRaging consumptions nourish meRaising hell to eye levelSoul’s cry out it’s terminalThe first shall be last and the last shall be firstLet your words pepper tonguesBurn eyes in re-verseSpeak now.
Loann Hutchinson: A Response to The Space Belongs to Them
The programme opens with a documentary (Statues Hardly Ever Smile, 1971) filmed inside the Brooklyn Museum. A group of school children are invited to spend a week improvising a series of drama performances, inspired by objects found inside the museum. The narrator tells us that, by the end of the week, the children feel as though the museum belonged to them.
Derick Armah: Response
Introduced through gentle tones emanating from Makella Ama’s singing bowl, and then culminating with a poetry recital from Raheela Suleman, the director of SABR (2023) The Space Belongs To Them opens and closes through rhythmic sound.
Cindy Ziyun Huang: Daydream House
We are in an empty house. Through window blinds, bright sunlight dances on walls and makes shifting reflections. Our eyes pan across the grainy white walls.Their expansive blankness turns the vacated house into an abstract shadow (Isabelle Tollenaere,The Fruit Tree, 2022). We are sleepwalking in a stranger’s daydream.
Nathaniel Weisberg: A Granite Lover
The programs Acre After Acre: Mile After Mile and The Southall Shift at this year’s London Short Film Festival presented visions of two ostensibly very different parts of the city.