Artists’ Cinema Today

Hiwa K was born in Kurdistan-Northern Iraq in 1975. His works escape normative aesthetics but give a possibility of another vibration to vernacular forms, oral histories (Chicago Boys, 2010), modes of encounter (Cooking with Mama, 2006) and political situations (This Lemon Tastes of Apple, 2011). The repository of his references consists of stories told by family members and friends, found situations as well as everyday forms that are the products of pragmatics and necessity. He continuously critiques the art education system and the professionalization of art practice, as well as the myth of the individual artist. Many of his works have a strong collective and participatory dimension, and express the concept of obtaining knowledge from everyday experience rather than doctrine.

Maryam Tafakory, born and raised in Iran, works with film and performance. Solo screenings/exhibitions of her work include MoMA (New York), BOZAR (Brussels), National Gallery of Art (Washington DC), Academy Museum (Los Angeles), Museum of the Moving Image (New York), and LUX London, among others. Selected group events include Tate Modern (London), Cannes’ Directors Fortnight, New York Film Festival, Locarno Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, BFI London Film Festival, and Anthology Film Archives (New York). She was awarded the Gold Hugo at the 58th Chicago International Film Festival, the Tiger Short Award at the 51st Rotterdam IFF, and the Best Experimental Film Award at the 70th and 71st Melbourne International Film Festival. She was the 2024 winner of the Film London Jarman Award.

Basim Magdy is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice encompasses drawing, sculpture, video, and installation. He works with different media including drawing, painting, animation, installation, sculpture, printed matter, film and sound. He is particularly interested in creating narrative structures that explore the space between reality and fiction and its influence on science, history, global culture and the dissemination of knowledge.

Colectivo Los Ingrávidos (Tehuacán) is a Mexican film collective founded in 2012 to dismantle the commercial and corporate audiovisual grammar and its embedded ideology. The collective is inspired by the historical avant-gardes, and their commitment to using both form and content against alienating realities. Their methods combine digital and analog mediums, interventions on archival materials, mythology, agitprop, social protests, and documentary poetry. Their radical experimentations on documentary and cinematographic devices produce images, both visual and auditory that are political possibilities in their own right.

Shana Moulton is a California-born-and-based artist who works in video, performance, and installation. In 2002, Moulton began the video series Whispering Pines, in which she performs as Cynthia, an alter-ego searching for purpose and fulfillment through home decor, self-help paraphernalia, and cosmetic rituals. Moulton has had solo exhibitions at international institutions including Palais De Tokyo in Paris, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Kunsthaus Glarus in Switzerland, the Museum of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her work has been featured in Artforum, the New York Times, Art in America, Flash Art, BOMB, and Frieze, among others. Her work has been featured on Art21 and her single-channel videos are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix.

Elle Burchill and Andrea Monti are artists, curators, and co-founders/co-directors of Microscope Gallery, a contemporary art gallery in New York. Microscope presents works by emerging to established artists with an emphasis on the mediums of moving image, sound, performance, and digital art. Since its founding in 2010, the gallery has also organized a regular event series taking place at the gallery and including screenings, expanded cinema, sound, performances, readings, artist talks, and other events made for a live setting. The gallery has also collaborated with institutions on exhibitions and events including The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, NY; Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, Germany; and Paul Klee Museum, Bern, Switzerland, among others.

Ariana Kalliga is a curator with a focus on moving image, research-based practices, and the relationship of infrastructure and ecology. She is the Curatorial Assistant at Amant, a center for contemporary art located in Brooklyn, NY, where she works on exhibitions, film screenings, and other programs. She has previously held positions at The Museum of Modern Art, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the Norman Foster Foundation, among other organizations. In 2022, she edited the publication Artist-Run Dialogues, which considers new models of transnational solidarity between artist-run and non-profit organizations. She is the recipient of a Stavros Niarchos Foundation Curatorial Award by Artworks (2022) and holds a BA in History of Art from the University of Oxford and an MA in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College.

Inney Prakash is a film programmer and critic based in New York City. He is the founder and director of Prismatic Ground and currently serves as Curator of Film at the Asia Society.

Sarah Bex Rice is an archivist and film programmer whose work centers on experimental and non-fiction cinema, with a focus on the reuse and recontextualization of archival material. She currently manages the archival footage collections for art licensing agency Bridgeman Images and programs for the Brooklyn Film Festival and the Ceres Food Film Festival. Her projects span event curation, archival sourcing, experimental cinema, home movies, concepts of time and moving image culture.