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 […]
When you’ve watched the 14 hours of Exergue on documenta 14 (2024), I think you will be ready to watch Wang Bing’s 15 Hours (2017) as your next task. – Adam Szymczyk message to students in the Ohio State University classes Contemporary Theory and Art Education and The Social World of the Arts, Fall 2025, […]
In 1889, Congress openly seized land in Indian Territory for white settlement. The land runs thundered. Many of the settler towns created in the land runs are ghost towns now. Timber, railroads, and mining leaving a host of cavernous emptiness in their wake. What is a ghost town in a nation whose settlements, roads, and […]
