Secret File: Hollywood

See What I See "See What I See" is a documentary portrait of Norwegian artist, educator and collector Guttorm Guttormsgaard and his eclectic archive of art, craft, books and ephemera. Guttormsgaard recounts his thoughts on collecting, vision, art and place to filmmaker Sam Williams at home amongst his collection in the small town of Blaker, Norway. Through snippets of dialogue and layered imagery, the film becomes a conversation between the director, Guttormsgaard and the countless objects in the collection. Guttormsgaard passed away shortly after the conversation and this touching portrait offers a unique insight into his world.

Ghazal no 884 By Bidel This films follows the emotionally intense experience of Saghari staying in her mother’s room, sleeping on her death bed, and trying to experience her point of view by going through her mundane objects. "Ghazal no 884" by Poet Bidel Dehlavi is read by a friend, sent as a voice message on Whatsapp as soothing company to calm the grieving moment. Mirza Abdul-Qader Bidel (Bidel Dehlavi) was born in 1644 in (Azim Abad) Penta, India. The themes of his poems are influenced by multitudes of philosophies including Hindu, Sufi and Islamic traditions. Following the ideas of Ebn al-ʿArabī, he considered air (an aspect of nafas-e Raḥmānī, the breath of the Compassionate) to be the foundation of the world and spirit. Everything else –minerals, plants, animals –are viewedas the product of nature, which itself emerged from a single word brought into being through the articulation of “the breath of the Compassionate”.

Teatro Principal A portrait of the Teatro Principal in Camagüey, Cuba. In making this film Konefsky thought about Conchita (the house manager of the theatre) and how maternal and nurturing her chair folding gesture was. Thinking about this film now, the artist hopes there is a thread of empathy embedded in the film –empathy for all the many, many theatres around the globe that are now closed due to Covid-19.

July Days "July Days" is a mixed media installation / moving image work that revolves around a single, blurry image taken around 1917. Purportedly representing the Red Army carrying Malevich’s ‘Black Square’, the photo allows for varying narratives, interpretations and hopes. Mingling archival footage with digital renders, "July Days" brings together a chorus of voices that explore what such a photo can represent in an age of fake news and virality. In the process, "July Days" invites its viewers along a hopeful and intimate reading of (art) history that celebrates the potential of radical imagination.

Cripple Developing redaction techniques from previous works and taking the form of cut-up poetry and assemblage, "Cripple" explores the idea of idleness in the context of the reality of how disabled people have been pushed further to the margins of society due to austerity. From the outside it may seem like they are lazy or idle and not deserving of help. However without support they are deprived of the human right to enable them to be part of society. Cripplewas commissioned by Phoenix as part of Idle Index, which invites artists to create screensaver works. The work uses several passages from Frances Ryan’s "Crippled" (2019, Verso Books).

Traumatic Measures "Traumatic Measuresis" an exploration of Saavedra’s personal trauma when he was stabbed in Bogota, Colombia. The film realises his further search for rational explanations as a result of flashbacks experienced in London whilst encountering stories about knife crime. The project fixes on his mind’s experience, obsessed with an irrational need to understand and assess the event through a series of experiments and re-enactments. Inspired by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and his 1982 speech about the European obsession with measurement and categorization and the “Studies in Motion” by Muybridge, Saavedra designed specific experiments and grids to recreate the situation, both from the perspectives of the victim and the perpetrator, understanding the feelings from both sides of the crime through repetition. Though photography is used as a documenting mechanism to understand experiences, video is the media that enable Saavedra to travel through time back to the moment when the stabbing occurred.

Riddle of Bakuli In "Riddle of Bakuli" Adrus shares personal experience interwoven with South Asian narrative within an East African context. The work is a montage of film, stills and sound with Adrus drawing upon his artistic research and residency with Uganda Arts Trust in Kampala, the city where he was born but forced to leave as a child 40 years ago due to the ‘political situation’. Through retracing his footsteps, Adrus revisits Kampala, and the way in which buildings and places trigger profound memories. Memories appear fragmented at first, however through ‘digitised’ archives and contemporary footage, new perspectives and stories emerge. Being displaced to Switzerland / Europe the issue of mobility, belonging and race are still very much current. This life changing event has been a key influence in much of Adrus’s work, exploring exile, communities, script / language and associations with places.

Spectrum 2 Patel’s new animation projectsoutlines of himself moving across the gallery wallthrough a spectrum of colours, revealing different skin tones through hisown body’s lines.Made over the summer, the work follows animations the artist shared on Instagramduring thecovidlockdown.

Night Song "Night Song" is a wall-based installation that includes a video collage incorporating stop motion animation and hand painted video stills. It explores ideas behind the theme of insomnia. Filmed after dark, the multiple layering of images and sound draws the viewer into the unsettling emotional world of the insomniac. The soundtrack is made from recordings of a beautiful dawn chorus that has been slowed down and reversed to create a wakeful nightmarish lullaby. The hand painted video stills create a further dimension, taking the painterly process in the film making off the screen, back on to paper and reworked using oil paint.

Making Landfall "Making Landfall" is a mixed media experimental animation film exploring transience and perceptual ambiguity. Using a hand drawn aesthetic, it offers a milieu defying immediate comprehension and offering no fixed point of view. The horizon is unstable and disappears early on creating an unstable sense of place and a feeling of disorientation.