On the occasion of the installation of Richard Bell’s Embassy, inspired by the Aboriginal protest camp set up on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra, Australia, Tate Film will present a three-day programme devoted to artists engaging with a transnational movement of resistance against colonial powers. As part of our Tate Late on Friday 26 May, a series of short films curated with artist and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Alan Michelson will be screened in the cinema. The screenings will be followed by a panel conversation with Alan Michelson and three of the filmmakers, Fox Maxy (on Zoom), Carolina Caycedo (on Zoom), and Matti Aikio.
“Our stories were different but they seemed to fit together perfectly,” speaks the young Two Spirit at the start of Sky Hopinka’s Dislocation Blues. Animating the screen this Friday will be eight shorts, long on the pain and beauty of survivance—enduring presence and resistance—by eight filmmakers, engaging with Indigenous histories and lifeways. Their filmic visions glide and churn—across threatened lands and waters, beings and cultures under continuous assault—in images that dazzle the eye, inform the mind, and mobilize the heart. Embedded in their sweep is struggle but not surrender, profound continuity, penetrating artistry.
Dislocation Blues follows on from Thursday 25 May, an evening screening devoted to the practice of Danish-Korean filmmaker Jane Jin Kaisen, and will continue on Saturday 27 May with a matinee screening of works by Saodat Ismailova. Both, as well as Alan Michelson, will join in person to present their films. In addition, collection works by the Black Audio Film Collective will be screened daily at the Starr Cinema, throughout the duration of Embassy.
