April 1–30, 2022
e-flux Video & Film is excited to feature James T. Hong’s Apologies v2016.2 (2021, 90 minutes, SD video) as the April 2022 edition of our monthly online series Staff Picks.
Originally designed as a video installation, Apologies is a compilation of modern political apologies and a timeline of political progress as unrepentant recidivism and contrite repetition. It is a continuing work-in-progress, and this version ends with 2016. Dozens of apologies are collected every year, and they will be added as time permits.
The passage of time does not heal all wounds; it cannot settle all accounts or resolve all disputes. But the identities of the perceived perpetrators can change, and a national apology’s task is to document, to put on record, a symbolic act as a prelude to possible reconciliation and forgiveness. To achieve these ends, one’s sincerity is paramount, especially when reading from a script.
Watch the film here.
About the artist
Taiwanese-American filmmaker and artist James T. Hong (b. 1970) creates thought-provoking works that prompt conversation on controversial socio-political and historical issues. His films have premiered at international film festivals, including San Francisco International Film Festival (2007), IDFA (International Documentary Festival Amsterdam) (2012), Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale), and Busan International Film Festival (2019), where he won the prize for Best Documentary (Mecenat Award) for Opening Closing Forgetting (2018), a film that follows Chinese survivors of Japanese biological warfare. He has screened films, and presented multimedia installations and performances in biennials and museums around the world, including Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) (2013), Mediacity Seoul Biennial (2014), Kiev Biennial (2016), Para Site, Hong Kong (2015), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2017), and Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore (2018). He has participated in several editions of the Taipei Biennial, most recently “You and I Don’t Live on the Same Planet” (2020), curated by Bruno Latour and Martin Guinard. His 2021 solo show Animal at the UK’s Ikon Gallery just recently closed. Hong’s work is represented by Empty Gallery, Hong Kong. He lives in Taipei.
About the series
e-flux Video & Film: Staff Picks is a monthly streaming series of staff picks and recommended videos designed to disrupt the monotony of an algorithm. Before the end times of big data, we used to discover suggested content along dusty shelves in video rental stores, where Post-it notes scribbled by shift workers implored us to experience the same movies that made them guffaw, scream, or weep. Sometimes the content bored us, sometimes it overwhelmed us, and sometimes, as if by magic, it was just right. e-flux invites you to relive this rental store mode of perusal, with personalized picks curated through judgment that does not take into consideration your viewing history.
For more information, contact program [at] e-flux.com.
