Artists’ Film International

Photo: ©Nadeem Din-Gabisi

12–19/12/2024
Art gallery, Gallery Artget, Podroom

Solidarity

Artists:
Mary Sullivan, Collectif Faire-Part, Bahar Arfan, Milica Rakić, Nadeem Din-Gabisi, Lihuel Gonzales, Caterina Erica Shanta, Cassils, Rana Nazzal Hamade, Aarti Sunder, Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas, Maud Sulter, Ingrid Bjørnaali, Maria Simmons & Fabian Lanzmaier, Pınar Öğrenci / Želimir Žilnik

Partners:
Crawford Art Gallery ● Argos Centre for Audiovisual Arts ● Center Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe ● Cultural Center of Belgrade ● Forma, London  ● Fundación Proa Buenos Aires ● Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo ● Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions LACE ● MMAG Foundation in Ammam ● Project 88 Mumbai  ● Sapieha Palace, branch of Contemporary Art Centre CAC ● Tramway Glasgow ● Tromsø Kunstforening,Tromsø  ● Video-Forum of Neuer Berliner Kunstverein n.b.k

Associate Programme:
Vesna Vesić, Teodora Miodragović, Nikola Nikolić, Anna Molkanova i Polina Demeneva, Saša Karalić, Ivana Smiljanić, Milica Stefanović

Artists’ Film international was initiated by the Whitechapel Gallery in London in 2008 with idea to foster collective practice and intercultural dialogue through collaboration on the design and realization of an artistic film program. The theme of this year’s edition is solidarity as a form of collective resistance, togetherness and interdependence.

The exhibition in all three galleries of the Cultural Centre of Belgrade shows 14 short films plus 7 associated to the Belgrade edition of the project, which were selected through an open call with the idea of ​​participation of a larger number of local artists and a stronger connection with the local environment. All films address the ways in which solidarity is needed, sought and enacted on micro and macro scales.

The films look at the concept of solidarity from the perspectives of colonialism, sustainability, transgender rights, world building, exploring different narratives of intersectional feminism, women’s struggle and resilience, the complexity of migration, bringing to the fore neglected dimensions of work and natural resource politics.

Between 15 and 20 international art organizations participate in this traveling film program every year, whose curators propose an artists’ film, which is shown in all institutions from the partners’ network. These are short films, which in the exhibition environment provide the opportunity to simultaneously recognize differences and similarities in terms of approaches to certain topics, production, and in general relations with moving images and our reality. From the beginning, the project functions as a horizontally organized program that is an example of collaborative curatorial models, providing wide-reaching visibility for artists.

The Cultural Center of Belgrade has been a partner in the project since 2012 and one of the galleries Podroom was opened with this project.

Until now, at the suggestion of the Cultural Center of Belgrade, coordinator and curator of the Belgrade edition Zorana Đaković Minniti, the works of Aleksandar Jestrović Jamesdin, Tanja Ostojić, Igor Bošnjak, Bojan Fajfrić, Vladimir Nikolić, Milica Tomić, Marko Tirnanić, Neda Kovinić, Dejan Kaludjerović have been shown there.

In 2023, the organization Forma from London took over the coordination of the entire project.

The AFI ’24: Solidarity program began its tour earlier this year at the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork, Ireland, in July, and has since been shown around the world in partner venues that make up the AFI network. 24: to Argos center for audiovisual arts in Brussels, Belgium; Ballroom Marfa in Texas, USA; Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in Exile (Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in eXiLe e.V. – CCAA in ECiLe) in Frankfurt, Germany; Cultural Center of Belgrade, Serbia; Forma, London, UK; Fundación Proa in Buenos Aires, Argentina; Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bergamo (Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo, GAMeC), Italy; in (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions – LACE, USA; MMAG Foundation in Amman, Jordan; in the space of “Project 88” in Bombay, India; Sapieha Palace at the Contemporary Art Center (CAC) in Vilnius, Lithuania; in Tramway in Glasgow, Scotland; at Tromsø Kunstforening in Norway and Neuer berliner Kunstverein Video Forum in Berlin, Germany.

⫸ More about the project, artists and partners