Bani Abidi/Priya Sen

Processing our days

10–22 August 2020

RESERVED, installation view from They
died laughing, Gropius Bau, 2006, courtesy
of the artist

Medium
Video

Location
Online

Teaching language
English (the teachers also speaks Bengali, Hindi and Urdu)

What to bring
Laptop with basic video-editing software (IMovie, Windows Movie Maker), smartphone with HD-video camera, back-up battery charger and tripod

Requirements
A comfortable relationship with making videos on smartphones, and ideally some experience with editing on computer software, but that is not a prerequisite.

Maximum number of participants
15

Participation fee
€ 500.– (€ 400.–)

The video workshop will revisit methods of video-making and distribution that we already use in our daily lives: Facebook and Instagram stories, YouTube videos, GIFS and others. We will look at the ways in which these forms are used, from the personal diary to the political and satirical. Also, how we as artists can appropriate and use these popular forms of production and dissemination to create fiction, documentary, narratives and poetry which exist in the real world, outside the limits of the art world and the gallery system.

How can we alter and develop the contemporary method of self-portraiture ‘The Selfie’, how can an afternoon walk in the city be documented in a poetic way, what are the possibilities of using text in designing stories, what is the role of sound in social-media videos? Most importantly, we will think and consider how much time we spend on making images before sharing them. We will make moving images slowly, intentionally and thoughtfully.

Bani Abidi is an artist working with video, photography and drawing. She is known for her use of humour as a way of negotiating realities that are often hard. She likes to mock power and side with ordinary people, empowering herself and others by means of tools with which authority can be dethroned and ridiculed. Her observations and works draw inspiration from everyday life in the cities where she has lived, from snippets of news, and from the grand narratives presented daily to its people by the State. She works most frequently with video, but is also interested in other possibilities of creating meaning through time, so also makes sequential drawings, photographs and sound installations.

Solo exhibitions (recent)
2019 Bani Abidi: Funland, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (AE). They Died Laughing, Gropius Bau, Berlin. 2017 Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin. 2016 Kunsthaus Hamburg, Hamburg (DE). AAN Gandhara Art Space, Karachi (PK). 2015 An Unforeseen Situation, Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX (US). 2014 Kunstverein Arnsberg, Arnsberg (DE).

Group exhibitions (recent)
2019 Khoj International Artists Association, New Delhi. 2018 Memorial to Lost Words, Lahore Biennale, Lahore (PK). 2017 DEJIMA. Concepts Of In- And Exclusion, Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (DE). 2016 Enactments and each passing day, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi. Art From Elsewhere, Bristol Museum & Art Gallery, Bristol (UK). 2015 Scenes for a New Heritage: Contemporary Art from the Collection, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY (US). Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga.

www.baniabidi.com

Priya Sen is a New Delhi based filmmaker and artist who works across film /video, sound and installation. Her films like to play with narrative modes, while being situated within spaces of contested freedoms in the city. She is interested in the potentials of realist documentary but as a productively defamiliarizing enterprise. Her films have been presented at the Flaherty Seminar 2019, among other festivals and venues that include The Kitchen NYC, BFI London Film Festival, Berlinale, and Outfest LA.

Portrait photo Bani Abidi: Schokofeh Kamiz
Portrait photo Priya Sen: private