The theme for this festival is ARCHIVE!
Why ARCHIVE, and why is this political?
We have initiated this festival as a place of discussion and action. Films and artworks are created and shown in social relations and embedded in context. The artists that have been selected for this festival are conscious of this, and their works’ social impact continues beyond this event.
For this reason, the topic of ‘archive’ felt right to us - archives are not just crucial to anthropological research, they are powerful political tools, and not always for good. Anthropology as a discipline itself is deeply marked by the rigorous, objectifying, non-consensual archiving of colonial researchers. For this reason, this festival is intended as a place to question who it is that creates archives, why they create them, how they can be subverted, and how new archiving can be used for radical social change.
See this Instagram post on the theme selection to learn more.
During the course of the day, we will talk about for example:
What is an archive? What can count as archiving?
Can archives ever be neutral or objective? Who gets to archive what and whom - and why?
How can we, in new ways, make use of already existing archives, that often have a violent history of hierarchical categorisation and extraction?
What are there alternatives to the kind of archiving that relies on hegemonic and forceful classification?
DAYTIME Programme:
Rotherhithe Beach:
10:00 - 11:30 Thames riverbank as Archive: a guided walk to Rotherhithe Beach w/ Ricardo Leizaola (he/him)
For the early birds: we will start the day with a field trip to the river Thames to see what ‘treasures’ we manage to find and photograph during the low tide making and thinking about archives. The walk will be led by mudlarker and lecturer from Goldsmiths’ Anthropology Department, Ricardo Leizaola, whose knowledge of this craft will leave you speechless. You may be surprised what kind of items get to be a part of the riverbank.
Meeting point with Ricardo outside of the Rotherhithe overground station (Windrush line) at 10am. Dress warm and bring packed lunch.
THIS ACTIVITY IS FULLY BOOKED! Sign up to the waitlist.
SET Social: 55a Nigel Road, SE15 4NP Peckham, London, UK
14:00 DOORS OPEN
Red bar room will host art installations and serve as a hangout & social space with drinks all throughout the day.
Main room will be used for pre-bookable workshops, talks and the main film festival showcase.
Hot food will be served 17:00-22:00 in the garden room. Catering provided by En Root - Indian inspired vegan cuisine and a local Peckham-based business. Plates starting from £7.
Last drinks will be served at 22:30. The venue shuts down at 23:00.
!! UPDATE !! - WE ARE NOW SOLD OUT FOR THE MAIN FILM FESTIVAL SCREENINGS. Please stay tuned - we are planning to upload some of the films we screen to our online website archive after the event.
14:00 - late KONTEKST Community notice board
In an attempt to make the festival space more horizontal, we are planning to set up a community notice board to which we encourage you to bring anything you’d like to share with other visitors! Please feel free to bring any materials that you’d like others to see and engage with, such as posters for your own events, zines you made or like, info about collectives you are a part of, your business cards, fundraising campaigns that are important to you, maybe some examples of your own work with some context?
If you are an artist that makes things and if this event could help you establish yourself, this is your shout - we can even let you sell some of your work at the event (please message us if you’d like to do that).
The only requirement that we have for what we can host at the KONTEKST community notice board is that it adheres to our values and mission that we stated in our MANIFESTO.
Running this festival is for us an inherently political thing - we reject the increasingly normalised imperialist, racist, xenophobic, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and ableist discourses and oppose the rhetoric of the growing far-right. We actively encourage you to come with any brochures, educational materials and resources that we could collectively learn from and take action.
Please keep in mind that we do not take responsibility for any items gone missing - we recommend making it clear to visitors if they can take your materials with them or just look at them.
Taking a multimodal approach to ethnography has been central to our vision. All installations featured and workshops hosted take experimentation seriously. Inspired by digital tools, queer movement theory, decolonial practices and more, the artists use material cultures such as textile and sculpture, and the body itself, to challenge the notion of ‘archive’.
With them, we question what archives can be, consider how to subvert violent archival practices, and explore alternative approaches to archiving that are based on collective care.
14:00-late Art & installations (red bar room)
Installations will be on display all throughout the festival day. Make sure to be at the red bar room for 18:30-19:00 when featured artists will be doing intros to their work and putting it in context.
Jafaican by Finley Gilzene (he/him) @binley.finley
A photography and video installation focusing on the issues of belonging, identity and race from a point of view of a transnational English-Jamaican artist, and made in the collaboration with his grandma who came to the UK as a part of the Windrush generation. It’s a project that both unpacks and creates an archive.
Kära Karin by Emelie Victoria (she/they) @emelievictoriea
Video installation. Inspired by Catherine Russel’s and Benjamin Walter’s theories on archiveology and appropriation, Emelie revisits familiar locations in the Swedish Värmland from the point of view of her great grandmother, born in 1896, who was also an avid photographer.
The film raises questions about the preservation and ethical use of archives (family archives in particular) when the ones who could provide context or consent are no longer present.
9jafuturhythmachine: soro soke by Adza Tarka (she/her)
An interactive multimedia installation comprising of a performance video, a textbook and a sculpture that prompt the audience to reflect on how archiving is both a result of intentional remembering but also intentional forgetting. By doing so, Adza confronts us with the two histories of Nigeria: one of the people and one of the state.
This is the first time this project will be shown in public, and Adza hopes to use this opportunity to engage Nigerians and diasporic audiences in London in conversations about history-making, as well as get feedback towards her research and future iterations of this project.
Afon Lleuad by Millie Juno (she/her)
Video installation. Afon Lleuad is a film that was made as an assignment for the BA Anthropology & Visual Practice course at Goldsmiths University, where Millie is currently on her second year.
The short film is a result of the collaboration with her mom, for whom the family archive videos brought pain, as her childhood was unexpectedly brought to a halt with the loss of her brother. Through this project, Millie attempts to facilitate giving new meanings to these idyllic yet distressing images.
Community ties by Demi Abiru (she/her) @sisubae
Community ties is a physical and digital installation that archives thoughts, stories and memories that came up during the Liming sessions facilitated by the artist until now.
The sculptural work that we will display adheres to the notion of opacity as it will be fully understandable only to those willing to engage further with Adire and Ifá - practices that will be explored at upcoming workshops organised by Demi, to which the guests of our festival are invited to through this artwork.
Jonga☆sani by Thenjiwe Nxumalo-Parsley (they/them) @jongasani, @midnightswami
Jonga☆sani is a new web-based radio station with an audio-visual archive that uplifts the power of DJing as an archival tool for the ingenuity of black femme and queer artists starting with South Africa and London. The project will be officially launched by Thenji at KONTEKST Film Fest!
During our event, guests will be able to interact with the virtual platform in a form of an installation, and vibe to the DJ mixes from Jonga☆sani’s expanding list of collaborators: @tdnxumaloswtlv @peezuspleez @whereisanagalactic @d1gitalsaint @midnightswami_ and more”. The theoretical research behind the project will also accompany the digital installation.
At the end of the festival evening, Thenji will take over the DJ deck with an experimental set, mixing electronic music with archive material and voice recordings as an exercise in blurring the lines between club music genres. Stay with us after the main film festival screenings until 22:45 for a boogie!
14:30-18:30 workshops & activities (main room)
Workshops and activities are all free to attend for festival guests. Due to limited capacity, some of them require pre-bookable tickets, which you add to your order on the top of the festival admission. Book your spots here.
14:30-15:50 Restaging Queer Archive as Collective Care w/ Rizky Rahad (he/him) @rich.rahad from Qamerad Collective @qamerad
This workshop, led virtually by Rizky from his home in Bali, Indonesia, will explore alternative routes of dealing with violent archive material that misrepresents, and the ways of turning it into a weapon that subverts its original meaning, with an aim of fostering community care.
The workshop will include a talk led by Rizky that will contextualise his film House of R3nc0ng screened as a part of this activity, followed by a short Q&A. Rizky will also introduce us to his queer cinema collective Qamerad which organises guerilla screenings in Bali, and is committed to the redistribution of resources.
Limited capacity so book your tickets now!
16:00-16:45 Faux Expressionism: Simulation, Movement and Embodied Archivism w/ Gian Sanghera-Warren (he/they) @gian.sw
Inspired by Jean Boudrillard’s theory of Simulacra and Simulation, Gian’s research focuses on how hyperreality materialises in physical and virtual movement in the contemporary, social media driven landscape. The workshop will start with a talk to then move into a practical activity where guests will be invited to experiment with their own body movements.
Limited capacity so book your tickets now! Workshop participants are encouraged to bring an image or video based piece of media (meme?) to be included in the interactive section of the workshop :)
17:00-17:30 Somadex w/ indexthumb (they/them) @indexthumb
Somadex is an image and movement performance that explores the topic of embodiment of various identities and transgressing the lines between them. Indexthumb will dive into their past to uncover what shapes, movements and gestures used to be a part of themself and their embodied archive. The performance will then turn into a movement workshop where participants will be invited to engage with their own bodies’ archives.
THIS ACTIVITY IS FULLY BOOKED! Sign up to the waitlist.
17:40-18:30 The Context of KONTEKST: a conversation on critical friendships, collective labour and the futures of visual anthropology w/ Centre for Visual Anthropology & KONTEKST collective.
This conversation, guided by Dr Lee Douglas (she/her) @leefotos representing the Centre for Visual Anthropology at @goldsmithsuol, will chart how pedagogical approaches to practice-based teaching at Goldsmiths have informed KONTEKST collective’s focus on critical friendship and peer-to-peer feedback, as well as its focus not only on filmmaking, but also the curation and creation of film events rooted in open, horizontal discussion. Through the conversations, participants and the public will trace the futures of visual anthropology and situate the film festival event in a larger context.
In conversation with Lee there will be some of KONTEKST’s current members: Emelie Victoria (she/they) @emelievictoriea, Sam McNeil (he/him) @sam_j_mcneil, Sana Nurlan (she/they) and the founder Arti Siudem (they/them) @janusz_santana.
This conversation is intended to give a bit of a backstory about our collective project and to serve as an opener for further discussions. We are planning to host a follow-up virtual open collective meeting after the festival, which everyone interested in getting involved in KONTEKST will be welcome to join.
EVERYONE WELCOME to tune in as there is no capped capacity for this activity.
17:00-22:00 Catering by En Root (garden room)
En Root is a plant-powered, vegan food vendor that draws on the rich spices and traditions of Indian cuisine while focusing on bringing fresh, locally-sourced ingredients to the table.
“Born & raised in South London; Gujarat is the Root. India via East Africa with travels across the world shape the En Root identity. Plant Powered Pioneers. Gujarat is the vegetarian state of India. With a passion for bringing fresh, plant based nutrition & a focus on health, wellness & community; En Root provides energy to support your development towards a brighter future. Being & becoming!”
You can find them at the festival serving up their signature creations, including their famous Raja Bonnet sauce, from 5pm to 10 pm with options starting at £7. More info here.
EVENING Programme:
18:30-19:00 Intros to art installations (red bar room)
Featured installation artists will provide context for their work and answer questions from the audience: Adza Tarka, Demi Abiru, Emelie Victoria, Finley Gilzene, Millie Juno, Thenjiwe Numalo-Parsley.
19:00 MAIN FILM FESTIVAL SHOWCASE (main room)
FULLY BOOKED OUT! Stay tuned - we will upload some of the films we screen to our online website archive.
BLOCK 1: UNEARTH
19:00-20:15
To unearth, to pull from the ground, to uncover and expose. Why are some things covered? Should they remain so? Who has the power to unearth, and when should they? This first block focuses on archives in the making, the revealing act itself as a refusal to be unheard.
These artists are generous enough to add to and question current renderings of history, that in violent ways tend to silence groups of people. They help us re-construct the story of how we got here by using everything from reinterpreted family archives or observational film to performance and fiction.
They gave me a camera to know where I’m from (11min)
by Florenza Deniz Incirli (she/her) @florenza.mp4
As part of an ongoing research project, this work-in-progress is an excavation from the director's personal archives. Family videos from the early 2000s, recorded by her journalist father, Serhat Incirli, are assembled to reveal fragments of a politicised familial life. Both father and daughter mediate their experience of the world through film and text. Through repetition, ritual and conversation, this work explores how children in the Cypriot diasporas perceive and experience memory, cultural identity and displacement.
Dr. XYZ: A Medical Drag Transthology (15min)
by El Jaunts (they/them) from XYZ Projects @xyzprojects0121
This film is a 16mm art-house healthcare information film combining ethnographic accounts from Birmingham’s trans+ community with verbatim drag-satire reenactments. The film, commissioned by the BFI’s NHS Untold Stories Initiative, educates GPs on effective gender-affirming care and is currently circulating within NHS England staff training networks.
Dover 82 (5min)
by Aria Danaparamita (she/they) @itsmita
In 2024, at least 82 people died crossing the Channel in order to claim asylum in the UK – the deadliest year on record. The natural and built architecture of the liminal port town of Dover – from the white cliffs to the Western Jet Foil tent where surviving refugees are “processed” – embodies the violence and grief etched into the shoreline. An evocative contemplation on the politics and spatiality of bordering, this film archives the sites, textures and architecture of the border infrastructure, taking the abstract into a tactile, urgent confrontation with our complicit relationship to place and violent policing of movement.
A Guide to Dance for Adult Children (14min)
by Sadaf Biglari (she/they) @sadafbgl
Through the lens of archival home movies, the film is an experimental journey that delves into childhood memories, highlighting dance not only as a tool of expression but also as a manifestation of existence. Playing with an imaginative and fictive approach to archival footage, it seeks to reclaim agency and power for seven-year-old Sadaf and her classmates while emphasizing the power of archives as a medium to challenge stereotypical and often linear portrayals of Iranian women.
(see trailer)
Vittne (witness) (12min)
by Ahmad Al Shahabi (he/him) @ahmalogy
Vittne is a story told with archival images, a visual journey back to the time when my family and I embarked on a harrowing escape from the war-torn land of Syria. I, a mere 13-year-old at the time, and my older sister Manal, who was 18, clung to our cameras as we ventured through the tumultuous waves of war and migration. Now, a decade later, we revisit those heart-wrenching snapshots, each frame echoing with the indelible emotions of our past. As we sit together and reminisce, our hearts are heavy with the weight of memories, and we share our profound reflections on those trying times.
(see trailer)
20:15-20:30 Intermission, drinks
BLOCK 2: WARP
20:30-21:30
To warp, to shift, to take what is there and re-present it anew. This second block looks at how alternative archives can be suggested and violent archives subverted, and with them the power structures that those archives are born from.
By tapping into methods like desktop documentary, multimodal translation and counter-mapping, these filmmakers inspire action and suggest that things are usually more than what they seem.
90 Miles (7min)
by Rosa Prosser (she/her) @rosa_prosser
90 Miles is a short experimental film mapping the River Eden in miles and MIDI sounds. Images are taken from an armchair voyage down the River Eden – by “armchair voyage”, this is very much a journey through the online (and removed) archive of historical and contemporary maps. Contrasting the static and the distant, the soundtrack is composed from a swim by the artist – audio from the swim converted to MIDI then transformed into Logic SoCal drums. These sounds prompt the question of where archives are necessarily stored – for there is another archive of the river, stored (reverberating) in the body.
Dragking Highway (19min)
by Junes Dreyfus (she/her) @gamerjeannedielman
Dragking Highway is a DIY digital road movie, exploring the different textures and temporalities of transfem hitch-hiking. Mundane conversations of varying degrees of truth are layered over landscapes of never-ending highways, recreated gas-stations and compressed horizon lines. This film is a product of iteration, a patchwork of footage and sounds captured over the span of two years, processed and digested through screens and digital tools. The result is a non-linear narrative contrasting truth and lies, recollections and reconstructions, domesticity and vulnerability.
The first person to disappear (8min)
by Huiqi He (she/they) @huiqi_he_
This desktop essay film combines online footage with archival materials about Nuwa, the Chinese Great Mother Goddess. Through this interplay of shifting narratives and evocative imagery, the film examines the harsh historical and contemporary realities surrounding women’s bodies in China, while also imagining the possibilities of a queer future. This video incorporates an extensive collection of archival images and ancient ink paintings, blending them with contemporary visual materials. It explores alternative ways of engaging with archives, integrating all the elements into its narrative while highlighting the connections between past and contemporary.
Fatal Tide (9min)
by Akinsola Lawanson (he/him) @_akinsola
Fatal Tide is a short docu-fiction film that explores the concept of flow within a world bound by rules and materials. It begins as a documentary investigating the formations of cyclones during the North Sea storm surge in 1953. Fictionalising the history of the Thames Barrier, it tells a story about a consortium of corporations planning to use an extensive network of sluices to create a massive analog computer to simulate and control markets, ultimately bringing earth to a standstill.
How do we sleep when our beds are burning? (17min)
by Arturo Maciel Flecha (he/him) @artttuuuro
How can we sleep while our beds are burning? is part essay, part performance, and part documentary, based on the filmmaker’s exploration of queer histories of violence in Latin America and their representations in media, especially the recurring image of burning beds. Departing from the question, “How can we reappropriate these images of violence and create new, emancipatory narratives around queer kinship and resilience?”, the filmmaker assembles a montage of photographs, testimonies, and affections from his transnational Latino queer friends, weaving their voices into the intimate space of his own bed.
21:30-22:00 Q&A with the filmmakers (main room)
22:00-22:45 Jonga☆sani experimental live DJ set (red bar room)
Thenji from Jonga☆sani radio will take over the DJ deck at the very end of the KONTEKST Film Fest with a an experimental set that will blend electronic music with vocal recordings. The set will be not only a boogie finale for our festival programme but also a practical exercise in dismantling the ideas of genres in club culture.