Floating Cinema

TBA21–Academy's Ocean Space renews its yearly collaboration with the Cinema Galleggiante—Unknown Waters—a cycle of screenings and performances that takes place at the end of the summer exclusively on the waters of the Venetian Lagoon.

The fifth edition pays tribute to Franco Basaglia (1924-1980) and Franca Ongraro (1928-2005) on the centenary of the Venetian psychiatrist’s birth. Inspired by their work, the program focuses on visionary actions and their ability to challenge reality, paving the way for new models of coexistence.

We will present a program of short films curated by María Montero Sierra on Friday, September 6, 2024.

What do those who live by the sea dream of? Beatriz Santiago Muñoz invites us to consider the ways in which the ocean—and its water—seeps into their dreams, painting new images and giving new meaning to the watery space. In her film Bird, Eat Me (Philoctetes), 2022–23, the traces of the coastline's constant fluctuation expose the geological transformations rapidly occurring in the South of Puerto Rico as well as the attuned sensibilities of those who practice forms of coexistence. The fluid nature of waters merges with conductive intelligences casting many dreams, including the desires and stories sustained through the labor of seafarers and fisherwomen. Search for Life, 2023, by Stephanie Comilang portrays the exhausting routines and work conditions of the seafarers and reveals the pressing forces of capital and labor in a globalized world. The maritime cargo industry intertwines with the hopes of the Philippines seafarers who find their allies in the long travels of the monarch butterflies exposing the condition of historical and contemporary diasporas. The forms of knowing that dreams may reveal in the hands of the fishwomen are paramount testimonies of the Indigenous teachings in drawing connections between humans and the ocean. aqui Thami's Women fish, 2022 approaches the underrepresented and undervalued work of fisherwomen in Bombay and Venice demonstrating an essential part of the prehistoric occupation of fishing, providing sustenance for their communities and preserving cultural traditions. We may, for now, not understand the oniric impact on more-than-human beings, and yet a dedicated lullaby for the regeneration of coral reefs is part of a night-time ritual of mass coral-spawning, widely celebrated along the coastal regions of Bougainville and Buka Islands. Hyena Lullaby, 2020 by Taloi Havini with Michael Toisuta rocks us into the regenerations of water ecosystems through the shadows of the night celebrating the healing of life.

• Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Pájaro, cómeme (Filoctetes) [Bird, Eat Me (Philoctetes)], 2022–2023. Three 16mm films installation (black and white, color and sound), 6 min 45 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.

Bird, Eat Me (Philoctetes) reflects on the constant movement of the coastline traced between the land and sea. The artwork introduces us to the people who inhabit the coast and possess a deep knowledge of its ecosystem based on their daily observations. It also shows the daydreams that these isolated places incite. The analogue film lend a portrayal of Puerto Rico’s southern coast—a region that has been particularly impacted by climate change. Through what the artist calls the “sensory unconscious,” we observe how constant geological transformations are manifested in human and animal bodies, consciously and unconsciously accentuating certain sensibilities that connect them to their environment. The protagonists of this piece bear witness to a sensorial intelligence that can be linked to this notion of movement. What do those who live by the sea dream of? Through hints and dreams that eschew linear narratives, the artist challenges and revises the conventional imagery imposed on the island region and thus, in a way, provides a means for the ocean to overcome the traumas associated with its waters, giving voice to other sensitive forms.

This is a single channel version of the installation and film that emerged from Bird, Eat Me (2022), a film commissioned by TBA21–Academy for the online platform TBA21 on st_age and TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary.

• Stephanie Comilang, Search for Life (Episode one), 2024. Two channel video installation (color and sound), 20 min 40 sec

This is an updated single channel version of Search for Life a work in the form of a diptych commissioned by TBA21 and Sharjah Art Foundation.

The film Search for Life brings to the screen the extraordinary scope of today's global maritime cargo movements, as well as the vital role of Filipino seafarers. The stories are told by interwoven voices of various figures, including the historian Guadalupe Pinzón Ríos; Philippine butterfly specialist Aster T. Badon; Michael John Díaz and painter Joar Songcuya, both Filipino seafarers; a boy named Simón from Michoacán, Mexico; and, of course, the voice of the monarch butterfly. Comilang's work juxtaposes temporality, geography, and technology into narratives in which the future and past become aligned, addressing diasporas, generations, survival, violence, and desire. Comilang’s films, which she calls “science fiction documentaries,” are a combination of chronicle and illusion, with stories that inhabit multiple voices and perspectives that aim to describe how culture and society are related to the cornerstones that shape our globalized world, namely mobility, capital, and labor.

• aqui Thami, Women fish, 2022-ongoing. Venice and Bombay chapters. Single channel video, color, sound, 7 min

Production support of Bette Adriaanse, Netherlands

"The ocean is a sacred and vital resource that sustains life and provides nourishment in celebrating women in fishing I am celebrating this great nurturer. The sound of the ocean is a metaphor for the voices of the many different women who fish. It represents their strength, rresilience, wisdom, unity, interdependence, and connection to tradition. Just as the ocean's sound is a powerful force, so too are the voices of these women, deserving of recognition, amplification, and support. As with all of my works, a participatory form is essential so that the women I am making in collaboration with shape their own narratives and share their unique perspectives. It allows them to reclaim their stories and depict their experiences authentically, thereby challenging stereotypes and misconceptions that may have hindered the recognition of their essential role in the industry." - aqui Thami

• Taloi Havini with Michael Toisuta, Hyena Lullaby, 2020. HD video, color, sound, 3 min 31 sec

Commissioned by TBA21–Academy with the support of Institut Kunst HGK FHNW in Basel. As part of the third and final voyage of TBA21–Academy’s ‘The Current II’ fellowship cycle ‘Spheric Ocean: Life For Beginners’ led by Chus Martínez. The Ocean Archive debuts the film ‘Hyena lullaby’ (2020) by Taloi Havini and Michael Toisuta.

Coral bleaching has become a common sight along reefs throughout the Pacific ocean as we witness the decline in the health of our coastal habitat environments from rising sea levels, unpredictable weather patterns and in our reliance on taking sustenance from the reef. Yet in all of this devastation, nature continually shows us signs of regeneration in a night-time ritual of mass coral-spawning - widely celebrated along the coastal regions of Bougainville and Buka Islands. The synchronised movements between the moon coinciding with the coral releasing new life, rising to the surface and floating along only to fall down into forming new corals along the reef, is an annual ritual that has been witnessed and celebrated with great excitement by Havini’s Nakas ancestors since time immemorial. With sound design by Michael Toisuta, vocals by Sana Balai, filmed by Taloi Havini and edited with Miriana Marusic, this video collaboration explores these non-linear textures and the cycles of life and death in an underwater phenomenon the Nakas people call Hyena.

Stephanie Comilang is an artist living and working in Berlin. Her documentary based works create narratives that look at how our understandings of mobility, capital, and labor on a global scale are shaped through various cultural and social factors. Her work has been shown at the Tate Modern, Hamburger Bahnhof, Tai Kwun Hong Kong, International Film Festival Rotterdam, Julia Stoschek Collection, and Haus der Kunst. She was awarded the 2019 Sobey Art Award, Canada’s most prestigious art prize for artists 40 years and younger.

Taloi Havini (Nakas Tribe, Hakö people) was born in Arawa, Autonomous Region of Bougainville and is currently based in Brisbane, Australia. She employs a research practice informed by her matrilineal ties to her land and communities in Bougainville. This manifests in works created using a range of media including photography, audio – video, sculpture, immersive installation and print.

Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (1972, San Juan, Puerto Rico) is an artist whose expanded moving image work is entangled with Augusto Boal’s ideas on the Theater of the Oppressed, expanded cinema, and feminist practices. She tends to work with non-actors and incorporates improvisation into her process. Her recent work is on the sensorial unconscious of anti-colonial movements, with everyday poetic thought and feminist experiments with language and narrative. She has recently had solo exhibitions at Crac-Alsace, in PIVO as part of the 34th São Paulo Biennial; in the Momenta Biennale; and in Der Tank, Basel. She has received a Herb Alpert Award in the Arts and the 2021 Artes Mundi Prize.

aqui Thami is a Thangmi woman of the Kiratimma first peoples of the Himalayas. She uses social exchanges and develops safe spaces to position art as a medium of healing in community. aqui's interdisciplinary practice ranges across ceremonial interventions, performances, drawings, zine-making, fly posting, and public intervention, brought together by participant involvement; most of her work is self-funded and realised in collaboration.

For more information and to discover the complete program of the fifth edition of "Floating Cinema - Unknown Water" please visit the website: www.cinemagalleggiante.it.

Booking is required.