colonialism

This work of docufiction, filmed in collaboration with the Quechua community of the Altiplano plateau, bears witness to the secret sterilizations of women carried out by American health workers as part of the Peace Corps in Bolivia. In a stark narrative about powerlessness, intransigence, and grief, the camera absorbs the faces of the local people and the high mountain landscape. The soundtrack, created by the Teatro Collasuyo group, creates a raw composition from ambient noises, sobs, and traditional instruments. The title refers to a sacred Andean bird, which becomes a metaphor for the sacrifice and resistance of the indigenous people against colonialism and violence. “[The Blood of the Condor] is furious, lyrical, and unflinching—though it stops short of becoming didactic. In lieu of a traditional distribution strategy, Sanjinés and his team travelled around the Altiplano and small villages of western Bolivia with a projector, speakers, and a generator, showing the film on a white sheet. Sanjinés estimates 250,000 Bolivians saw the film, and protests in the capital inspired by the film’s critical portrayal of US intervention led to the expulsion of the Peace Corps from Bolivia in 1971.” — Lucia Ahrensdorf, Notebook Primer: The Grupo Ukamau Source: Mubi Notebook

The genealogical journey to discover the origins of exotic plant species begins in the Royal Botanic Gardens in Madrid. It was here that a mysterious box containing seeds from an expedition to South America in 1936 was found. The journey back in time and space to southern Peru involves uncovering layers of a turbulent past. Scientific knowledge and the cataloguing of flora helps explain the nature of colonial extraction of everything valuable and contributes to establishing at least partial justice and eradicating historical injustices. National heritage here functions as a non-obvious social construct that must be fought for and cared for in order to preserve its integrity. The ambient still life of the hacienda reveals the suspected brutality of the slave era. “The presence of the observer could never be neutral. Whether he is aware of it or not.”

When British colonizers first planted rubber trees in Malaysia, they paved the way for the future of the local economy, and the economic and cultural subjugation of the population. Accompanied by folk songs, an old man awakens in this poetic documentary, and begins to dance despite the deforested horizons of the present. “I’m interested in the juxtaposition of textures in music and tempo in film, while translating the synthesis of sound, music, text and narrative into a symphonic sky of stars on a cloudless dark night – an encompassing space that is sincere, complex and has power to heal.” — Wey Yinn Teo

Ammar and Bilal both have experience as refugees living in present-day Germany. They meet thanks to an interview conducted by an actress and actor, who are using it as inspiration for a play they are preparing. However, the documentary film Taste of Salt follows their conversations, their everyday lives, and ultimately the theatrical performance that emerges from these conversations. The film thus recounts the experience of exile through three different means. Ammar and Bilal talk about their difficult experiences with migration and with their lives in their new home. At the same time, the camera follows them in distanced shots that emphasize their uprootedness in the German urban environment and, ultimately, in the artistic theatrical performance. Thanks to this, the film can be viewed as a testimony to the current waves of migration, a record of their everyday existence, and an empathetic portrayal of their feelings about life. “We had two different feelings. First of all we were happy that we had left that bad place and the pain we faced there. And secondly, a fear of what we are going to face. For me it was the first time I had seen the sea.”

In this video essay, the polysemy of iron is mined like a rare ore and smelted into a wealth of unexpected synergies: the stellar origin of iron is linked to its presence in human veins and in the geological layers of the Earth. The moose's sense of magnetic north and south intertwines with images of the Arctic landscape, in which the rusty remains of military equipment lie scattered. Fungi and bacteria that feed on iron are absorbed into the motif of a hunting knife. Between the cosmos and the individual, nature and technology, life and civilization, an iron bond is formed, which is commented on in dialogue and occasional unison by a girl's and a woman's voice. “The word ‘raqs’ in several languages denotes an intensification of awareness and presence attained by whirling, turning, being in a state of revolution. Raqs [Media Collective] takes this sense to mean ‘kinetic contemplation’ and a restless and energetic entanglement with the world, and with time.” Source: Raqs Media Collective

Rafah, a city on the border between Gaza and Egypt, became the target of four days of bombing after the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier on August 1, 2014. The Forensic Architecture collective analysed footage from mobile phones and satellite images and compiled an accurate spatiotemporal model of the events using synchronization, 3D modelling, and examination of the shapes of smoke clouds, shadows, and craters. This served as evidence for Amnesty International, which did not have physical access to the area, to accuse Israel of war crimes. Pure work with digital traces is transformed here into an image of the world—a detective visualization of destruction and its impact on the civilian population. “Today, artists are engaged in investigation. They probe corruption, human rights violations, environmental crimes and technological domination. At the same time, areas not usually thought of as artistic make powerful use of aesthetics. Journalists and legal professionals pore over opensource videos and satellite imagery to undertake visual investigations. This combination of diverse fields is what the authors call ‘investigative aesthetics’: the mobilisation of sensibilities associated with art, architecture and other such practices in order to speak truth to power.” — Matthew Fuller and Eyal Weizman, Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth, Verso Books, 2021