A Cinema of Hybridity - Two nights of screenings and installations

2990 San Pablo Ave,Berkeley CA 94710

27 July, 2022

Description

As a part of the exhibition Forever Was Never Till Now, Kala Art Institute presents A Cinema of Hybridity -two nights of screenings and installations by Esy Casey & Jamal Ademola at The Pearson Theatre at Meyer Sound. Artists will be present at the event with post-screening Q&A. Limited seating capacity, please RSVP. Theatre Location: 2837 10th Street, Berkeley, CA 94710 Installations on view at Kala Gallery, extended hours until 5:30pm on July 27&28 before the screenings. Gallery Location: 2990 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley CA 94702 Exhibition Dates: July 21-Sep 30, 2022 (closed Aug, 1-9) Gallery Hours: Wed-Fri, 12-5pm Esy Casey presents her project IN THIS WORK THERE IS NO DAY AND NO NIGHT, a two channel video installation depicting the dual invisibility of a Filipina domestic worker abroad, and in the home she left behind. The film unfolds in extended time to allow a closer look at the care and grace inherent in everyday gestures of domestic work. In moments they parallel devotional dances to the Santo Niño of Cebu, a statue of the child Jesus brought to the Philippines by Magellan in 1521, initiating the global trade between Asia, the New World, and Spain. The ambient sound of the two countries is split between right and left speakers, allowing viewers to shift between two worlds and languages, or feel positioned between both. This project was made possible by the invaluable perspectives and performances of several individuals in the Oakland-based organization Filipino Advocates for Justice. Created with the support of The Creative Work Foundation, The Princess Grace Foundation USA, The New York State Council on the Arts, and UnionDocs. Esy Casey is a Filipino American filmmaker and visual artist. Her interdisciplinary work considers the ways that symbols and objects in a landscape maintain the presence of past events and belief systems. Her directorial debut JEEPNEY won the jury prize for Best Cinematography at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and was nationally broadcast on PBS. She is the recipient of awards and fellowships from organizations including The New York State Council on the Arts, The Creative Work Fund, The Princess Grace Foundation USA, The Ford Foundation’s JustFilms Initiative, The New York Film Festival, MacDowell, Yaddo, The Center for Asian American Media, The Ms Foundation and the Asian Women’s Giving Circle. She studied at the Instituto Allende in Mexico and Scuola Lorenzo de Medici in Italy before completing a BFA from Parsons, and an MFA from Hunter College in Integrated Media Arts. Jamal Ademola is a Nigerian-American film director, visual artist, animator and actor. Jamal poetically works across a wide range of disciplines - film, video, animation, drawing, painting, installation, and performance. Across media, he builds rich, prismatic worlds that examine displaced Black identities, Afro-futur­ism, love and relationships, dreams, cultural consciousness and society. His films ''I Dreamed of Seeing Myself'' and ''Who Should I be in the World?'' have screened internationally at festivals, from Lagos, Nigeria to Hawick, Scotland. In 2021, He became an exhibiting artist in a three person exhi­bition titled ''African Ancient Futures" at (AWCA), A White Space Creative Agency in Lagos, Nigeria, curated by Ethel-Ruth Tawe. In 2022, he participated in the innovative, inaugural ''Black Beyond'' a Black femme led new media exhibition that invites artists and activists to speculate radical alternate realities for Blackness at The New School at Parsons, curated by jazsalyn, Shameekia Shantel Johnson, and Yvonne Mpwo. He appeared in ''Imagine a Moon Colony'' written and directed by Phillip Youmans as part of the HULU TV series ''Your Attention Please'' and "Ten Cen Daisy" a feature drama, fantasy film, directed by Lisbon Okafor premiering at the 2021 Urban World film festival and screening at the 2021 American Black Film Festival. He is the recipient of the 2021-22 Kala Media Art Award and fellowship, and has been awarded residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Caldera Arts, and Pocoapoco in Oaxaca, Mexico. His work has been featured in i-D magazine, Vogue Italia, Creative Boom, Okay Africa, Bomb Magazine and Vice. In addition to creating eye-catching commercials and nurturing his artistic practice, he is writing and developing projects for film & television in hopes to facilitate healing. He is represented by Where the Buffalo Roam andis currently based in Los Angeles. Films: 1) Ellas Vinieron de Las Nubes (2023) 5min - Rough Sample A diverse community of Black identified Mexicans share intimate experiences of life in La Costa Chica and Oaxaca, revealing connections in their endless struggle to be seen in their own country and live beautiful unencumbered Lives. (Live-action, animation ) 2) "Who Should I be in the World" (2020) 2:32 min Who should I be in the World?" is a short mixed-media film which tells the story of Angolan Model Tifeny Moreira, a first generation immigrant, as she attempts to reconcile her Black African Identity in a society thatdoes not comprehend her story. The effects of colonization by the Portuguese and her own family's decision to culturally assimilate in the west has saddled her with multiple foreign languages and alien cultures that make her question her own self concept & identity. ( Live-action, archival footage and animation ) 3) "Place for you and I" 1 min A Senegalese singer falls in love with sculptor trapped inside of a painting. 4) I Dreamed of Seeing Myself" 7 min A glide through the cosmos, I Dreamed of Seeing Myself by Jamal Ademola brims with possibility in exploring the power of dreaming through Black and African life. Here, the sun, moon and stars in black-and-white montage evoke dreaming as a liberatory force for Black subjects – over whose representation the film cleverly claims ownership.  - Rhea Storr