fluctuating images
fluctuating images
fluctuating images

In cooperation with fluctuating images will be presented on Wednesday, July 14, 2021, 21:00 (outside, inside only when it rains), Sinema Open Air: "The Colonial Institute"

Disrupt, Dismantle, Desire

In Disrupt, Dismantle, Desire we aim to explore cinematic languages that challenge hegemonic narratives. Each of the films selected looks deeper at (neo)colonial ways of being and queries how we might dismantle colonial modes of knowledge production. By highlighting various aesthetic strategies that interrogate cinematic forms developed in the self-proclaimed “center of civilization,” the films collectively ask: Can the ways in which we perceive, produce and distribute cinema play a critical role in our struggles to question and subvert neo-colonial and capitalist infrastructures, borders, and gender norms?

Funded by Berliner Landeszentrale für Politische Bildung, the Berliner Senat für Kultur und Europa and the Projektfonds Urbane Praxis

Eirini Fountedaki is an independent curator, writer and researcher. Between 2018 and 2020 she worked at SAVVY Contemporary as a curator of film. She is a co-editor of the publication How does the world breathe now? She studied musicology and violin in Greece, and Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 20202020, she co-founded the curatorial collective Cruising Curators.

fluctuating images is an independent and non-commercial platform for the presentation of and reflection on (media) art and design run by Cornelia Lund and Holger Lund. Its aim is to foster a fruitful exchange between aesthetic and discursive approaches to the multilayered challenges presented by our technology- and media-driven world from a global and decolonial perspective.

Philip Rizk is a filmmaker from Cairo living in Berlin. Amongst others, he co-directed the film Out on the Street (2015) with Jasmina Metwaly, which premiered at the Berlinale and was part of the German pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. Rizk is a member of the Mosireen, the collective behind the video archive 858.ma. His texts have appeared online, in journals and in collected volumes.

Shohreh Shakoory is an independent researcher and editor based in Berlin. Born and raised in Tehran, she finished her BA in art history and film and media studies in Rome and graduated with a master of fine arts from Bauhaus university in Weimar. Her research deals with politics of representation, aesthetic and archival knowledge.

For the series of films please see: https://bi-bak.de/en/bi-bakino/disrupt-dismantle-desire

In cooperation with fluctuating images will be presented on Wednesday, July 14, 2021, 21:00, Sinema Open Air:

The Colonial Institute 

Director Daniel Kulle Germany 2019

89 Min., OV with English subs

Followed by a talk with fluctuating images, Thị Minh Huyền Nguyễn and Daniel Kulle

When Hamburg University was founded in 1919, it was proud to be the first university of a new, democratic Germany; but it did not emerge from nowhere. By 1909, professors and politicians had founded the Hamburg Colonial Institute. Responding to genocide and bloody wars in German colonies, they tried to give colonialism a “scientific” foundation. The Colonial Institute wanders through the archives and collections of Hamburg University, its greenhouses and labs to track down this intricate entanglement of science, colonialism and restitution. The film takes us on an expedition to Central Africa, presents us with the letters of an African language assistant and takes us on a search for a skull we are not allowed to see.

Thị Minh Huyền Nguyễn is a freelance writer and media scholar. As a marathon runner, she is involved in the empowerment of BIPOC* LGBTQI* communities. As co-founder of the ichbinkeinvirus.org platform, Huyen volunteers against anti-Asian racism. When Huyen is not writing or running, she supports intersectional feminist projects such as BIWOC* Rising.

Daniel Kulle is a film maker and film scholar based in Hamburg. His work has focussed on queer cinema, (post-)digital aesthetics and experimental film. His short films, such as NoFace (2015), Under Your Skin (2016) and The Taming (2018) have been screened at several international film festivals.

https://bi-bak.de/archive/bi-bakino/disrupt-dismantle-desire