Artist in Focus: Nour Ouayda: Programme 2
Not All Things that Shine Are Beautiful; Poppies and Sailboats (Voiliers et Coquelicots); one sea, 10 seas (عشرة بحور وبحر واحد); Looking at the Sea
Run time: 66 min
Cinéstesia
For all ages
Experimental
Nature Shorts Female Director Guests at the Screening
Cinéstesia
Screenings:
Conceived in collaboration with Nour Ouayda, this selection of shorts takes the artist’s 2019 film One Sea, Ten Seas as a starting point to explore how camera can mediate the experience of oceanic flux – a motif that has been integral to the cinema since its earliest days and which continues to figure as a rich reservoir of aesthetic and political possibilities in the present. As Ouayda describes One Sea, Ten Seas, “There are all in all eight tapes dating from 2014 to 2018, each containing footage of the Mediterranean Sea, more precisely a small section of the coast around Beirut. Three women examine the recorded images and sounds, looking for traces of what they call ‘apparitions.’” Throughout the programme, whether in Ouayda’s emphatically digital textures or in photochemical works by Rose Lowder and Peter Hutton, the oceanic expanse opens onto perspectives that exceed the single individual and lead one to consider the inhuman beauty of our terraqueous planet.
Curated by Erika Balsom
Films in the screening:
Nour Ouayda: Not All Things that Shine Are Beautiful (Lebanon 2022; 6 min, in English)
In this experimental short video, filmmaker Nour Ouayda takes viewers on a walk towards Beirut’s seaside. Her camera is oriented toward the city’s texture, light, and colors, zooming in on the mundane details as if unable to see the city as a whole or at once.
Rose Lowder: Poppies and Sailboats (Voiliers et Coquelicots) (France 2001; 2 min, no dialogue)
Little is necessary for everything to appear differently. The date, the hour, the weather, the space’s layout, one’s glance or presence of mind . . . can make everything change. The boats sail out of the Vieux port in Marseille to be amongst the poppy fields.
Nour Ouayda: one sea, 10 seas (عشرة بحور وبحر واحد) (Lebanon 2019; 42 min, no dialogue, on-screen text in Arabic and English)
There are all in all eight tapes dating from 2014 to 2018, each containing footage of the Mediterranean Sea, more precisely a small section of the coast around Beirut. Three women examine the recorded images and sounds, looking for traces of what they call “apparitions”.
Peter Hutton: Looking at Sea (United States, Ireland 2001; 15 min; no dialogue)
Looking at the Sea is a meditation on the light, color and texture of the land and seascapes along the west coast of Ireland.
Curated by Erika Balsom
Films in the screening:
Nour Ouayda: Not All Things that Shine Are Beautiful (Lebanon 2022; 6 min, in English)
In this experimental short video, filmmaker Nour Ouayda takes viewers on a walk towards Beirut’s seaside. Her camera is oriented toward the city’s texture, light, and colors, zooming in on the mundane details as if unable to see the city as a whole or at once.
Rose Lowder: Poppies and Sailboats (Voiliers et Coquelicots) (France 2001; 2 min, no dialogue)
Little is necessary for everything to appear differently. The date, the hour, the weather, the space’s layout, one’s glance or presence of mind . . . can make everything change. The boats sail out of the Vieux port in Marseille to be amongst the poppy fields.
Nour Ouayda: one sea, 10 seas (عشرة بحور وبحر واحد) (Lebanon 2019; 42 min, no dialogue, on-screen text in Arabic and English)
There are all in all eight tapes dating from 2014 to 2018, each containing footage of the Mediterranean Sea, more precisely a small section of the coast around Beirut. Three women examine the recorded images and sounds, looking for traces of what they call “apparitions”.
Peter Hutton: Looking at Sea (United States, Ireland 2001; 15 min; no dialogue)
Looking at the Sea is a meditation on the light, color and texture of the land and seascapes along the west coast of Ireland.