The Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (ICA; until 29 May) is hosting the second Artists’ Film Biennial, with programmes overseen by artists and curators, workshops for emerging film-makers and a special group-screening featuring films made in the past two years.
“The ICA becomes a base for the UK’s moving-image organisations to come together, share in presentations and confer on their approaches and system of support for artist film-makers,” says Steven Cairns, the ICA associate curator of artists’ film and moving image. The event follows on from the ICA’s Artists’ Film Club, a monthly programme of artists’ films.
Artists Ahmet Ögüt, Charlotte Prodger, Martine Syms and Ming Wong have compiled their own screening schedules: Ögüt has selected works such as The Girl Chewing Gum (1976) by John Smith and Cristina Lucas’s Touch and Go (2010). The Berlin-based curator, Saim Demircan, and Hanne Mugaas, the director of the Kunsthall Stavanger in Norway, have also organised film programmes.
An open call for works by international emerging film-makers drew more than 300 submissions. Eight entries were subsequently selected for the group screening, entitled Outside, from participants such as Amir Ghazi-Noory and Patrick Rowan. “The quality of the works submitted was extremely high. The resulting programme is a tight, fast-paced, tour de force of some of the best work from the next generation of artists’ film-makers,” Cairns says.
A workshop for young film-makers aged 16 to 24 is also scheduled as part of the ICA’s ongoing series Stop Play Record.