From today until the 11th December, there will be daily posts representing different perspectives from Bodies Assembling, a project produced through by Auto Italia in collaboration with the Women’s film distributor; Cinenova. Through a series of screenings and workshops featuring moving image work selected by invited artists and activists, the project is engaging with Auto Italia and Cinenova both as organisations but also as active communities of artists. Bodies Assembling hopes to present a diverse set of relations between these communities and also with the practices and ideas that are represented by some of the films and videos distributed by Cinenova.
Saturday 3rd December
7pm - Take Up, Direct Action, Acting Up, and Lift’Activism, street actions and filmmaking; A Fantasy Whitehall and a historical insight into British women’s participation in the Olympics. Presented by Althea Greenan, curator of the Women’s Art Library (Make) at Goldsmiths.
Stock Exchange - Women’s Peace Action, Annabel Nicolson, UK, 1983, 10mins
Hey Mack, Tina Keane, UK, 1982, 15mins
Keep Your Laws Off My Body, Zoe Leonard and Catherine Saalfield, USA, 1990, 13mins
The London Story, Sally Potter, UK, 1987, 15mins
Watch That Lift, Martine Lumbroso, UK, 1986, 13mins
This screening follows on from ‘Women Artists, Feminism in the 80s and Now’: Ben Pimlott Building, Goldsmiths, December 3rd 10-5pm.
Sunday 4th December
4pm - Life, Love and HIV’Presented by makers of ‘Life, Love and HIV’, a video developed by ‘Adults living with HIV’ at Body & Soul, a pioneering UK charity dedicated to transforming the lives of children, teenagers and families living with, or affected by HIV. This screenings is exploration of media representation of discussions about and ‘for’ people who are affected by or living with HIV, in the context of current government cuts for funding HIV education, awareness and prevention in the UK.
Keep Your Laws Off My Body, Zoe Leonard and Catherine Saalfield, USA, 1990, 13mins
Mouthing Off, Leeds Aids Advice, UK, 1991 (excerpt)
Fast Trip Long Drop, Gregg Bordowitz, USA, 1993 (excerpt)
Life, Love and HIV, Adults living with HIV at Body & Soul, UK, 2011, 7mins
7pm - Social forms of resistance, incorporating the principles for which they are fighting’‘They struggle not only for the idea of social support and political enfranchisement, but their struggle takes on a social form of its own’ - Judith Butler, Bodies in Alliance.
A selection of films presented by Emma Hedditch and Melissa Castagnetto (Cinenova Working Group).
Leila and the Wolves, Heiny Srour, UK/Lebanon, 1984, 90 mins
The Package, Dara Greenwald & Ona Mirkinson, USA, 2010, 10mins
Thursday 8th December
7:30pm - Material Interventions’A workshop on how to operate a 16mm film projector presented by Kerstin Schroedinger. The workshop will be followed by a screening in which the participants are all responsible for the projection.
Slides I-V, Annabel Nicolson, UK, 1971, 16mins
(More titles to be confirmed)
Friday 9th December
7:30pm - Her Image Fades as Her Voice Rises’‘Sitting with her at the table, talking, her hands poised over the typewriter. The words in our minds, turning between description and analysis - to write the image, or to write about an image.’ - Felicity Sparrow and Lis Rhodes 1983.‘The first four films acquired by Circles distribution, which later became Cinenova.
The Smiling Madame Beudet, Germaine Dulac, France, 1922, 35mins
Light Reading, Lis Rhodes, UK,1978, 20mins
A House Divided, Alice Guy, USA,1913, 13mins
Often During the Day, Joanna Davis, UK,1979, 16mins
Saturday 10th December
4pm - Several films, one of which is potentially tedious’Huw Lemmey and Nina Wakeford present a selection of films which highlight the political stakes of the 1980s, when women’s relationships with technology and the world of work were addressed head on. The survey documents the variety of strategies used in political and personal engagements with the moving image, and have been chosen to challenge our relationship to the ‘unfinished business’ of feminism.
In Our Hands, Greenham, Tina Keane, UK, 1984, 40mins
Did I say Hairdressing’ I meant Astrophysics, Leeds Animation Workshop, UK , 1998, 14mins.
A Question of Choice, Sheffield Film Co-op, UK, 1982, 18mins
Running Out of Patience, Serena Everill and Chris Brown, Australia, 1987, 40mins
Impulse, Ramona Metcalfe, UK, 1987, 1min
7pm - It’s like staring someone out who isn’t looking at you’A performative screening organised by Rachal Bradley, Kate Cooper, Leslie Kulesh and Jess Weisner.
8pm - Transfictions’A presentation of two film works representing transgendered people. The works explore a possibility to transform the film-making process to find new vocabularies that challenge the notion of the ‘universal’. The screening will be accompanied by two texts from Irene Revell (Cinenova Working Group) and an interview between Richard John Jones (Auto Italia), Michael Oswell and Terre Thaemlitz.
Norrie, Annette Kennerly, UK, 1997, 21mins
Transfiction, Johannes Sjoberg, Brazil, 2007, 57mins
Sunday 11th December
4pm - Workshop on ‘Several films, one of which is potentially tedious’‘An open discussion with Huw Lemmey and Nina Wakeford following on from the issues raised by their previous screening.
7pm - The Black Whole’The Archivist and Acting Director of the Lambeth Women’s Project, Ego Ahaiwe, will respond to Cinenova’s claims to represent women’s film and video considering what has been left/kept out. The Cinenova catalogue is largely representing work by White European and White North American women. This event will ask how and why this collection has preserved and, to a large extent, maintained the excluding systems that formed it. This screening and subsequent workshop seeks to explore possible formulas, structures and frameworks that would transform the status quo.
Recreating Media Images of Black Women, Zeinabu Irene Davis, USA, 1983, 30mins
(More titles to be confirmed)
More information can be found on Auto Italia’s website: http://autoitaliasoutheast.org/projects/bodies-assembling/
