This week at Jameel Arts Centre, Tekla Aslanishvili will talk about her film at a screening on March 2.
As part of its moving image programme, Jameel Arts Centre is presenting a video installation by Sara Sadik and a documentary by Tekla Aslanishvili.
The film and video installation will be on for the next several months at the centre.
A State in a State (2022) is an experimental documentary film by artist and filmmaker Tekla Aslanishvili that follows the construction, disruption and fragmentation of railroads in the South Caucasus and Caspian regions. The film looks at railways as the technical materialisation of the fragile political borders that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Tekla Aslanishvili will discuss her film at Jameel Arts Centre on March 2 at 7 PM.
Revolving around scenes of delay and waiting constitutive of cargo mobility, A State in a State gives an alternative reading to optimistic narratives about the New Silk Road, as well as how the iron foundations of railway connectivity can be used for exclusion and geopolitical sabotage. Looking at historical and current practices of resistance, A State in a State explores the potential of railroads for building a different infrastructural consciousness, and for lasting transnational kinship among the people who live and work around them.
A State in a State was made possible through the Han Nekfens Foundation – Fundació Antoni Tàpies Video Art Production Grant 2020, in collaboration with Art Jameel, Dubai; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; NTU CCA, Singapore and WIELS, Brussels.
The artist will discuss her film A State in a State, on display at Jameel Arts Centre, recipient of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Fundacio Antoni Tapies production award.
The film is developed in artistic-scientific collaboration with Dr Evelina Gambino, Margaret Tyler Research Fellow in Geography at Girton College, University of Cambridge.
Produced by the Han Nefkens Foundation and supported by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe.
Artist Sara Sadik uses video games, science fiction, everyday life and French rap music to write coming-of-age stories. Her video works stage young men facing challenges and striving to achieve moral and physical transformation. Her multi-screen installation Ils finiront dans des ravins (They will end up in ravines) is inspired by video gaming arenas. Over a series of game-like missions, the protagonists invent their ideal society and devise ways to protect their environment. Through their words, which reveal their hopes and anxieties, Sara Sadik reflects on systems of coercion while depicting how self-love and community love invigorate resistance to oppression and social exclusion.
