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On December 30th 2023, I visited artist David Harding at his home in Glasgow. Among the things we spoke about, he told me the story of the poem called ‘The Last Lauch’ by poet and classicist Douglas Young. As town artist in Glenrothes from 1968 to 1978, Harding used some of the pavement and road building budgets […]
Abounaddara Collective’s Journey in Winter – Aesthetics of Material Absence Another view of the journey’s materiality as a narrative of dissent comes from the short film Journey in Winter by the Abounaddara collective, which operates from inside Syria. The collective is made up of a group of anonymous Syrian filmmakers whose works have raised awareness about the political and […]
The Syrian who wanted the Revolutionby Abounaddara The Syrian who wanted the revolution is not in opposition. S/he does not belong to the system of opposition, the product of a power struggle in Assad’s Syria. S/he did not go out onto the streets to bring down the regime, but rather to shout: “Thieves, thieves” and […]
In another Abou Naddara video, titled “Everything is under control Mr. President,” we peer out a doorway at a man standing silently in a sun-drenched alley. After 45 seconds, the view shifts to the same man in a courtyard, seen first from a few feet away, then closer. As the image dissolves to white, a […]
Outside the Cave, film still ©Abounaddara The audience La Vie des Idées: For whom do you make your films? How are they perceived by the various audiences you have encountered? Abounaddara: We make films because it is the most useful thing we can do for the revolution. However, we do not subscribe to activist cinema […]
[Starting at the end of 2015, documenta 14 posted the weekly ’emergency cinema’ videos of the Syrian collective Abounaddara on its website and Facebook page. As part of A Curriculum of Imposters (Here & Now, There & Then, On & On), I am reposting these videos, as well as screenshots of the original website posts […]