Date: Saturday 19 March 2022
Time: 6:30 pm
Venue: ICA, Cinema 1
Films: A Song of Ceylon, Laleen Jayamanne, Australia, 1985, 16mm digital transfer, 51 minutes, English,
Loss of Heat, Noski Deville, United Kingdom, 1994, 16mm digital transfer, 20 minutes, English
A Prayer Before Birth, Jacqui Duckworth, United Kingdom, 1991, 16mm digital transfer, 20 minutes, English
The second programme of The Work We Share, showcasing 10 newly digitised films from the Cinenova collection, brings together three works which in a variety of ways responds to themes relating to the notion of the body.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with Black feminist writer and Stuart Hall foundation researcher Lola Olufemi and art historian, writer and curator Christie Costello.
In Jacqui Duckworth’s A Prayer Before Birth, the artist explores her own experiences of being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. In Noski Deville’s magic realist short Loss of Heat, the audience is invited to reflect on notions of queer love and epilepsy through a poetic portrayal of two parallel lesbian couples. The longest work of the programme, A Song of Ceylon, by Laleen Jayamanne, borrowing its title from the 1934 Basil Wright documentary, engages with histories of colonialism and how these interact with questions of gender and the body.