Projections, Film & Video

RISD Museum Projections 2015

Projections screens films and videos by contemporary artists working between the gallery space and the cinema.

These feature-length films and shorter works develop meaningful narratives, document and investigate the fabric of the changing world in which we live, and make pointed political statements. Each Thursday evening program features an introduction by the artist, a guest lecturer, or a member of the RISD Museum curatorial staff. An opportunity for discussion follows the screening. Co-sponsored by the RISD Museum, the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Film, Animation + Video Department, and the Department of Modern Culture and Media at Brown University.

Yael Bartana

True Finn-Tosi suomalainen

March 12, 2015, 6:30-8:30 pm

Introduction by A. Will Brown, Curatorial Assistant of Contemporary Art, RISD Museum

Post-screening response by Daniel Peltz, Associate Professor, Film, Animation + Video, RISD

True Finn-Tosi suomalainen (2014) documents a group of eight Finnish citizens of varying ethnic, religious, and ideological backgrounds as they participate in a seven-day social project. Invited by filmmaker Yael Bartana, the individuals were asked to carry out a series of group activities, including designing a new Finnish flag and rewriting the lyrics to the Finnish national anthem. The resulting film, shot in a documentary style, explores the intricacies of citizenship in an increasingly global society. (50 minutes. Register at risdmuseum.org/calendar.)

Raqs Media Collective

The Capital of Accumulation

April 9, 2015, 6:30-8:30 pm

Introduction and post-screening discussion with Raqs Media Collective

and A. Will Brown, Curatorial Assistant of Contemporary Art, RISD Museum

The Capital of Accumulation (2010) is a video essay offering an oblique narrative in counterpoint to Rosa Luxemburg’s 1913 critique of global political economy, The Accumulation of Capital. Raqs Media Collective’s haunting, dreamlike montage pairs still and moving images with multiple narrator voices that meditate on Luxemburg’s legacy, the uncertain fate of her body, and the processes by which capitalism seeks to pervade the globe. (Register at risdmuseum.org/calendar.)

Related exhibition: Raqs Media Collective: A Myriad Marginalia

Shezad Dawood

Piercing Brightness

May 14, 2015, 6:30-8:30 pm

(Rescheduled from February 5)

Introduction by A. Will Brown, Curatorial Assistant of Contemporary Art, RISD Museum

Post-screening response by Andrew Weiner, Assistant Professor, Art Theory and Criticism, New York University (NYU)

Shezad Dawood’s Piercing Brightness (2013), the artist’s first feature-length film, blends experimental and established cinematic techniques to create a narrative about a group of human-like extraterrestrials sent to observe the human race. As two new visitors carry out their mission, they discover the seductions of earth life and encounter a number of their own kind who desire to remain and participate in human culture and society permanently. (77 minutes. Register at risdmuseum.org/calendar.)

Support for the RISD Museum provided in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts (RISCA), through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and private funders.