ICA Infrequencies

In this short episode you’ll hear the ambient sounds of the Mall, the street that is home to both the ICA and Buckingham Palace, recorded two days before the Coronation.

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Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet, playwright and the ICA’s former poet-in-residence.

In this episode he is joined by Twayna Mayne to discuss his research project: The

New Carthaginians and the links he makes in it between the Entebbe hijacking,

Icarus and the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

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Artists Lorenza Peragine and Ivana Sehic talk about their project ‘I do this everyday: pass it on’, which encompassed a 30-min public performance with video projection on the streets of Shoreditch, London, and a 4-hour workshop at the ICA in December 2022. 

The artists begin by discussing the concepts behind the project: the ‘production of space’ and our response to instrutctions present in a public space. They then read and comment on some of the movement scores devised by the ICA workshop participants. In the last part, they discuss the project in relation to the politics of public spaces in London, and bring examples from their past work with Flock collective and their PhD research.

The project was produced in collaboration between the University of Roehampton, Colégio das Artes Coimbra (Portugal) and the ICA, with support from Santander. 

More about the project and trailer: 

ica.art/i-do-this-every-day-pass-it-on 

More about the artists:

Ivana Sehic instagram.com/ivanasehic

Lorenza Peragine peraginelorenza.wixsite.com/lorenza-peragine

https://www.instagram.com/lo_racer

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Artist and writer Aria Dean discusses her recent work and the thinking behind her current exhibition at the ICA Aria Dean: Abattoir. The exhibition, which includes an immersive film installation and new sculptural presentation, builds on the artist’s ongoing research into agricultural and industrial architecture, specifically the intimate connection between modernity and death on conceptual, political, and material levels at the site of the abattoir.

ica.art/aria-dean-abattoir

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Moki Cherry’s family discusses collaging as working class art, the wisdom of children, and how family life and artmaking are part of the same practice.

With Neneh Cherry, Naima Karlsson, Tyson McVey, Linder Sterling and Hettie Judah.

Exhibition curated by Naima Karlsson and Nicola Leong

Event programmed by Susanna Davies-Crook and Nicola Leong

Recorded by Cheyanne Mccormack

Edited by Justin Tam

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Swindle has come far from his days experimenting with grime, funk and dubstep, but he still carries the craft of a jazz musician. In this conversation with Nicolas-Tyrell Scott, from the Town Hall conversations, Swindle talks about how he wrote a track with Kojey Radical, seeing more grime on mainstream TV, the different methods in writing for TV in Candice Carty-Williams' show Champion, and how he's never stopped learning.

Recorded Wednesday 28 Jun 2023 at the ICA in London.

Featuring Swindle and Nicolas-Tyrell Scott

Recorded by Ben Moon

Edited by Justin Tam

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Yvonne Rainer and film research Oliver Fuke have a conversation to open a season at the ICA celebrating the dancer and choreographer's body of film work.

She reflects many years back on how she experimented with form between filmmaking and dancing, on being accused of not caring about the audience, and on how she'd never change anything about her films.

Yvonne Rainer: A Retrospective

17 - 27 August 2023, at the ICA, London

www.ica.art/yvonne-rainer

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This episode was picked and edited by Amrit Sanghera, one of the ICA’s Public Advisors.

What happens when powerful black women use their positionality to push their identity as cultural product or representational symbol, and how useful this is for the interests of working class Black women?

Momtaza Mehri explores the slipperiness of female power, agency and identification. She touches on the pleasures Black women experience in the symbolism and imagery of powerful figures such as Beyonce and Michelle Obama.

The recording was part of a series of Black feminist programmes exploring pleasure as a politics of refusal, recorded on 9 November 2019.

Editor: Amrit Sanghera

Mixing: Justin Tam

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Part 3. Discussions from filmmakers responding to what Legacy Russell’s Glitch Feminism idea and how they use it in their practice.

‘Being a black woman in the world means a lot is expected and asked of you… the place I can set my strongest boundaries is in the digital realm’

‘Apps like Natural Cycle where suddenly we’re using technology to liberate our bodies from traditional medicine and that in a scewed way maybe is a form of cyber-feminism and enters into that world’

Featured short films by artists Salome Asega, Ain Bailey, Anaïs Duplan, Caspar Heinemann, shawné michaelain holloway, Zarina Muhammad, E. Jane, Jenn Nkiru, Tabita Rezaire and Victoria Sin. 

Glitch Feminism embraces the causality of 'error' and turns the gloomy implication of 'glitch' on its ear by acknowledging that an error in a social system disturbed by economic, racial, social, sexual, cultural stratification, and the imperialist wrecking-ball of globalization—processes that continue to enact violence on all bodies – may not be 'error' at all, but rather a much-needed erratum.

Recorded 17 November 2017.

Credits

Editing: Millie-Beth Wright

Sound: Justin Tam

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Part 2. Both Subrin and Syms create narrative works about how women are presented and documented through film and social media.

A Woman, a Part, dir. Elisabeth Subrin, USA 2017 (starts at 17 sec.)

‘I was thinking a lot about performance and what it requires within capitalism to be a person in an economy where you have to perform to survive… I don’t think one can be completely authentic and actually make a living.’

‘People don’t change in ninety minutes, I wanted the film to talk about how hard it is to change.’

The feature-length narrative debut of filmmaker and artist Elisabeth Subrin. The film is a critique of how women are portrayed in media, the ways in which personal relationships intertwine with and shape the creative process, and the difficulty of change – all set against a gentrifying New York City. 

Recorded 7 July 2017.

Incense, Sweaters & Ice, dir. Martine Syms, USA 2017 (starts at 13 min. 11 sec.)

‘Many women are required to perform emotional labour to succeed, or are expected to.’

Shot on location in Los Angeles, Chicago and Clarksdale, Mississippi, the new feature-length work by artist Martine Syms travels from the rural South to the Northeast, Midwest and West, following routes of the 20th century Great Migration of African-Americans. This multi-location narrative is never overtly region-specific, yet is psychogeography in origin. Similarly, ambiguous, the camera occupies multiple vantages in the film including WB, the interviewer and the omnipotent observer, serving to chart the ways we document ourselves and the lives of others.

Recorded 2 November 2017.

Credits

Editing: Millie-Beth Wright

Sound: Justin Tam

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In 2018, the ICA premiered Astra Taylor’s idiosyncratic, philosophical film What Is Democracy?,which spans millennia and continents to deliver an analysis of democracy on a collision course with capitalism. From ancient Athens’ groundbreaking experiment in self-government and capitalism’s roots in medieval Italy, to contemporary Greece grappling with financial collapse and a mounting refugee crisis, and the United States reckoning with rampant racism and growing income inequality, What Is Democracy? confronts today’s profound political and social crises.

The London premiere was followed by a discussion between director Astra Taylor and anthropologist David Graeber, hosted by Charlie Phillips, head of documentaries at the Guardian.

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Content warning: This conversation talks about eating disorders in detail (between 12'– 20'20").

Rapper Che Lingo discusses community, putting the message before the music and how anime shapes his sound, as part of the Town Hall with writer Nicolas Tyrell-Scott.

The Town Hall invites radical purveyors of art for a conversation, to discuss their art, journey, and process illuminating the intersections at large. Centering a dialogue-first approach and pivoting toward London’s unique musical cultures, the series provides commentary on being a multidisciplinary artist in these spaces, unpacking the current artistic, political and cultural moment(s) across London, but also Britain at large.

Hosted by cultural journalist and speaker Nicolas-Tyrell Scott, The Town Hall looks to show artists in their most intimate form provoking intrigue, dialogue, and perspective acting as a conduit of conversation amongst the ICA’s contemporary music programming and allowing attendees to share their voices also.

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3-part series on women directors. Three women filmmakers craft stories about migration, survival and community – as Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Nigerians under a military patriarchy, and Mexicans in LA.

Fadia’s Tree, dir. Sarah Beddington (starts at 7 min. 21 sec.)

‘The trajectory of the birds seemed to be able to reconnect people and place that had been separated and fragmented.’ 

While millions of birds migrate freely in the skies Fadia, a Palestinian refugee in Lebanon, yearns for the ancestral homeland she is denied. She challenges Sarah, the film’s Director, to find an ancient mulberry tree that stands as witness to her family’s existence. Spanning fifteen years, this story of a friendship that stays connected across a divided land and a fragmented people adopts a bird’s eye perspective to reflect on freedom of movement, exile and the hope of return. 

Recorded 2 August 2022.

The Supreme Price, dir. Joanna Lipper (starts at 15 min. 22 sec.)

‘You have a lot of useless men in power, why not have a few useless women… let’s get them in there and let’s make it normal.’ 

The Supreme Price is a feature length documentary film that traces the evolution of the Pro-Democracy Movement in Nigeria and efforts to increase the participation of women in leadership roles. Following the annulment of her father's victory in Nigeria's Presidential Election and her mother's assassination by agents of the military dictatorship, Hafsat Abiola faces the challenge of transforming a corrupt culture of governance into a democracy capable of serving Nigeria's most marginalized population: women. 

Recorded 17 March 2015.

Mija, dir. Isabel Castro (starts at 20 min. 51 sec.)

‘You carry a lot of pressure when your parents have made sacrifices and regardless of the specificity of your experience… that decision is a difficult and traumatic one and its one that carries implications intergenerationally.’

Isabel Castro’s deeply involving debut feature explores community, identity and the American Dream through the eyes of two young women raised by undocumented Mexican immigrants north of the border – the first members of their family to be born in the USA. 

Recorded 7 September 2022.

Credits

Editing: Millie-Beth Wright

Sound: Justin Tam

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Conversations and recordings from the ICA archives

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'Fragments From Heaven' director Adnane Baraka speaks with Abiba Coulibaly (of Opensources, a film exhibition project) about the identity of Moroccan cinema, filmmaking as a synthesis, and being guided by nomad communities in the deserts of Morocco.

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Technologist Chelsea Manning is in conversation with artist and writer James Bridle, discussing the rise of artificial intelligence and the role of AI in public policy, the state of the data economy, and the issues faced by transgender people today.

This was recorded at the Royal Institution on Monday 1 October 2018.

For more conversations and performances from the ICA programme visit ica.art

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This year marks the 2nd anniversary of the military coup that shook Myanmar in February 2021.This conversation was recorded after the screening of Myanmar Diaries at the ICA in London, between Nicolas Raffin, Managing Curator of Cinema at the ICA, and a member of the anonymous Myanmar Film Collective. Their work combines short films and powerful investigative journalism into a stirring and visceral testimony to the power of cinema as collective action.

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As part of an 'introspective' of 50 years of work, filmmaker John Smith is joined in conversation by director Carol Morley following a screening of five of his most radical and influential films: 'Om', 'The Black Tower', 'Dungeness', 'Gargantuan' and 'Slow Glass'.

Sound recordist: Nichola Farnan

Podcast introduction: Nicolas Raffin

Editor: Justin Tam

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Stream 'A Night of Knowing Nothing' on the ICA website ica.art/digital/cinema-3

Payal Kapadia’s award-winning immersive work addresses the political complexities of contemporary India. This conversation was recorded during the opening night screening for FRAMES of REPRESENTATION 2021.

Conversation: Nico Marzano

Podcast introduction: Nicolas Raffin

Editor: Justin Tam

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Curator Introduction: Nicolas Raffin

Editor: Justin Tam

Sound Recordist: Edwin Van Boven

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Commissioned by the ICA, Hold Hold Fire (2019) is inspired by Olivia Plender’s ongoing research into the East London Federation of Suffragettes, and was produced after an extensive series of workshops with women’s groups across London exploring the women’s suffrage movement from contemporary feminist perspectives.

The discussion took place after the screening, with Olivia Plender and academics Janna Graham and Kirsten Lloyd.

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Host: Nico Marzano

Curator Introduction: Nicolas Raffin

Live Translator: Chiara Marañón

Additional Translator: Nicole Davenport

Editor: Justin Tam

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Two of the Tottenham Three share their story, in their own words, on how they came to be charged, convicted and later, find justice in one of the biggest miscarriages of justice in British history. This conversation took part in 2021 during the exhibition War Inna Babylon: The Community’s Struggle for Truths and Rights, in a series of talks that revisited the female-led grassroots community around Broadwater Farm Estate in Tottenham. -- Editing: Lorenza Peragine, Justin Tam. Mixing: Justin Tam. Design: Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey.

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Writers Ifeanyi Awachie, Victoria Adukwei Bulley, Leo Hermitt, Selina Nwulu and Kareem Reid gather to share newly commissioned poems created in response to Toni Morrison’s writing and her passing in 2020. This event was part of Five Volumes for Toni Morrison, a convening dedicated to the life and legacy of the Nobel Prize-winning author. Co-curated by ICA Curators Ifeanyi Awachie and Nydia A Swaby, with support from ICA Community Arts Apprentice Aaliyah Kelly-Hibbert. -- Editing: Lorenza Peragine. Mixing: Justin Tam. Design: Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey.

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The work of Apichatpong Weerasethakul has been screening at the ICA since his films in the early 2000s. Tilda Swinton collaborated with Weerasethakul on Memoria, his latest work about an expat in Colombia who hears sounds that begin to torment her, and her journey into memory that follows. In this conversation, join a rare conversation with Apichatpong, Tilda, and Simon Field, the former ICA Head of Cinema in the 1990s. Curator intro: Nicolas Raffin. Recording: David Powell. Editing: Justin Tam. Mixing: Justin Tam. Design: Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey.

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