Category: documentary

Social distancing – Week 10: Days of Protests

On Monday 25th May in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the policeman Derek Chauvin, held his knee to George Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. Floyd kept repeating “Please, I can’t breathe”, but Chauvin did not listen to the imploring man. By the time the paramedics arrived, it was too late. George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was dead.

The murder has been filmed, and its video went viral straight away, stirring the anger of thousands. Soon, enraged protests sparked in Minneapolis and in response, president Trump threatened black American citizens with barbaric murdering by tweeting: “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” As a result, protests took place all over the country, also counting several episodes of violence. In an attempt to counteract violence in the streets, on Monday 1st June, NY Mayor De Blasio, announced a citywide curfew (the last curfew was put in place in 1943). Since the curfew announcement, protesters got together against police brutality and systemic racism worldwide.

The makeshift memorial outside Cup Foods where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer
MINNEAPOLIS , MINNESOTA – MAY 31: The mural and makeshift memorial outside Cup Foods where George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer on Sunday, May 31, 2020 in Minneapolis , Minnesota. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

The art world rose its voice in solidarity with rioters too. Alongside joining demonstrations, artists have been painting murals in Floyd’s memory in the US, Europe, Syria, and elsewhere. Email inboxes flooded with newsletters stating the organisation’s support to the Black Lives Matter movement. Emails which often include tips on how to safely protest amidst the threat of Coronavirus.

In Minnesota, the Walker art Centre and the Minneapolis Institute of Art have pledged to cut ties with the Minneapolis Police Department by stopping hiring police at their events. Collecteurs – the collective museum of private collections based in NYC – converted its Instagram profile into a live archive of the BLM movement. Their Instagram page showcases historical images related to black people long-lasting fight for their rights as well as real-time footage of current protests. Cultural organisations from around the world are campaigning in support of BLM. These vastly share bail funds and reading lists to inform their audience while providing the tools to help protesters.

All these are just some example of an overall soft contribution. However, hopefully these small actions will lead to a more radical change within an industry which is still predominantly white.

Raised fist – black power symbol – image taken from Pinterest

 

Social distancing – Week 6: “2 Lizards” by Meriem Bennani and Orian Barki

Have you ever read “The Best and The Worst of The Art World” which Artnet publishes every Friday? It is a bullet point list of news divided into two categories, predictably “Best” and “Worst”. Reading it is for fun. It is like taking a quiz in which one can also learn by reading just the news in capsules. Often, while going through the list, I become curious about something and decide to go deeper by clicking on the article links. It was in this way that I found out about the popular video series, “2 Lizards”. The project was launched on Instagram IGTV in early March by artist Meriem Bennani, in collaboration with documentary filmmaker Orian Barki (both millennials and based in New York).

The series is presented in 2-minute episodes mixing 3D-renderings of animals set against real footage. The main characters are two lizards living in Brooklyn during the lockdown sharing their thoughts, concerns, and feelings of isolation. The neighbours are animals of other species. Since the first episode (there are five to date), the artist duo has been contacted by creatives willing to contribute to the project. So, they opened up and started remote collaborations with friends and peers, adding soundtracks and voices to the films.

Episode 1 went viral getting more than 154k views at the time of writing. How comes that these short videos are so popular??? They are comforting. We can easily identify with the animated characters as they express our own feelings perfectly. In fact, both plots and dialogues are taken from everyday situations we are all living through in this strange time of social distancing. In the first chapter, the 2 lizards snoop at their neighbourhood from a terrace while conversing on the quarantine optimistically. “In a fucked up way, I’m loving this,” says one. The other answers back: “That is such a quarantine week one thing to say.” 

Episode 4 is about a feline nurse’s day-to-day life who talks with the two reptiles. The cat-nurse reports one heart-breaking event that happened during one of her shifts at the hospital. A patient connected to a ventilator, telephones his wife. The nurse, who was holding the mobile to the patient’s ear, explains how bad she felt as all the wife could hear was a ventilator. The video ends with the ubiquitous clapping for carers from balconies, and the nurse asserting “this pandemic has made me way cooler than I really am.”

Episode 5 is probably the most iconic of the series until now. The 2 reptiles go out for a stroll in a deserted New York City. They discuss how the city has changed and how, after all, still looks normal if not for the frozen economy. At a certain point, one of the lizards gets a call from her French mother. The mother-daughter chat reveals a condition familiar to many living in big cities, living overseas from their families while having news updates from home countries. When the phone call ends, the other companion needs to pee. Soon the buddies realise nothing is really the same during the lockdown. Starbucks is closed, and the lizard answers the call of nature in Time Square, pointing out that there is nobody around.

Bennani and Barki cunningly translate what we hear and see on TV and social media onto these witty micro-videos. What I felt from watching the episodes is that I am a person like many others. I find in these short animations something that belongs to me too, hope and anxiety. The reptiles’ lives and their dialogues perfectly embody our current ordinary in the uncertainty of the pandemic.

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Social distancing – Week 5: Earth Day 2020

I started this post, initially, writing about how galleries are collaborating to create online events. A couple of examples are “Platform New York” and “Platform London” launched by David Zwirner to support smaller galleries in the respective cities. Also, I found “Not Cancelled”, which instead presents online art weeks in different European cities (this week is the turn of Warsaw and Paris – until April 30th and May 5th respectively). As we are continuously overwhelmed by cyber art events, Livestreams, and tips to get through social distancing, I felt my topic has become less exciting. So I changed the subject and chose to offer you some hints to reflect on our world and the time we live in. Wednesday 22nd April 2020 was the Earth Day and two artists – Olafur Eliasson and Michael Moore – responded to the event by presenting their latest projects.

For the occasion, the Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson launched “Earth Perspectives”, a new interactive work that invites the public to think about the planet we inhabit. Presented as part of the Serpentine Galleries’ “Back to Earth” initiative, the artist’s new project comprises nine animations which have been posted on Instagram at different hours of Earth Day 2020. Each animation represents the globe in pink (land) and orange (oceans) seen from different latitudes. In the centre of each representation, there is a black spot at which we are asked to stare for 10 seconds. After that, if we focus on a neutral surface, an afterimage appears. Each animation highlights one different environmental issue and, through the optical trick, encourages the audience to think about climate change from different perspectives.

Meanwhile, in America, the filmmaker, author, and activist Michael Moore released his new film, “Planets of the Humans”. The documentary shows green energy solutions are not clean and renewable as they seem to be. Moore argues that they rely upon fossil fuel to function, and brings as examples solar and biomass energies, among others. On one side, the film leaves spectators puzzled about the sustainability of green energy as a means to save our planet. On the other hand, it provoked (and still does) the anger of many from environment campaigners to scientists. As reported from the Guardian, “Films For Action, an online library of videos, temporarily took down the film after describing it as ‘full of misinformation’.” Aside from the harsh critique, the documentary highlights that we, human beings, are too many, and our beloved planet is overpopulated. Consequently, there are not enough resources for all.

Eliasson engages the audience through Instagram, while Moore makes his work available for free on both Film For Action and YouTube. Both are using hugely popular online platforms to spread their work and get people thinking about climate change. Indeed, we are challenged to question the information we retrieve to tackle the problem with fresh eyes. Will we find viable solutions to preserve humankind whilst also protecting planet Earth? Are we supposed to choose between the two?

I don’t know.

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