Oksana Chepelyk’s experimental short films screening

Oksana Chepelyk’s experimental short films screening

(IMERA, 22 October at 6 p.m. - 8 p.m.)

This evening consists of screening a selection of artistic films dealing with topics such as body, feminism, politics, history, philosophy, new technologies and reflecting Russian’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine.

In total nine short fims will be screened:

1. LEADER'S FAVOURITE TOYS (15 min, 1998) a video based on the author's performance of the same title and interactive installation "Piece of Shit", realized at The Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada in 1998. The video balances between the research of sexuality and politics. The author appeals to the danger of the 20th century mass illusions and explores an issue of the responsibility.

2. Chorus (5 min, 1998/2004) a conceptual video based on Oksana Chepelyk's performance realized in Kiev at the Cultural Center of Deaf-Mute People researches the physical endurance degree of social body. If gesture of deaf-mute has an informational capacity, the absurdity of collective gesture is transformed into existential metaphor. The video researches personal physical and political boundaries marked by rituals such as the totalitarian parades, gymnastic pyramids and traditions. It is a reverberation between an exile and belonging; it is also the reaction on the United Europe when Ukraine becomes to be isolated. The work with disabilities people, who are isolated, underlines this idea. Project is dealing with communication and lack of voice in collective Chorus.

3. VIRTUAL SEA TOWER (5 min, 2000) is a video based on the author's site-specific installation of the same title, realized in collaboration with Zoran Pantelic and Zoran Eric the favela Jacarezinho of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, 2000. The temporary intervention explores the opportunity to create the communication place and by means of installation of the Virtual See Tower a symbolic connection to the city of Rio de Janeiro with its icons (such a Christ's figure, Sugar Loaf and so on). The air balloon lifts the video camera on necessary height showing the symbolic takeoff and openness -- mental as well as physical. The favela residents were interviewed; they described feeling both trapped by their surroundings and hopeful for future improvements. In response, a wireless dirigible was created that floated above the favela on the height that it was possible to see the sea. During the day camera captured and displayed real time images, a metaphoric and visual escape for the residents, and at night the balloon to be a screen showing video projection with the faces of the people from the favela speaking about desirable changes for their neighborhood. This Social Sculpture is appealed to provoke conscience shift, to affirm the potential of the people.

4. MANIFESTO (5 min, 2011) is a conceptual video, made in the context of contemporary art discourse, as an expression of the artistic principles by means of video performance, realized at UCLA within Fulbright Research Program, performed by Oksana Chepelyk, Mimi Tang and Cliff Simmons.

5. JORDAN (6 min, 2014) by Oksana Chepelyk, filmed in Zasupoivka Yagotyn District of Kyiv Region, is dedicated to the event of Epiphany Holiday in 2014, when the first murders happened in Kyiv during the Revolution of Dignity.

6. The Sacrifice (9 min, 2014) is a video from full length cycle “Woman and War.

7. GAIA (5 min, 2011/2020) Video refers through gender study to the Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposing that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The Gaia hypothesis, named after goddess of the Earths at ancient Greek mythology, was formulated by the environmentalist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Already in the twentieth century, Vladimir Vernadsky developed theory of the Earth's development that is now one of the foundations of Ecology. During the 1920s he published works, arguing that living organisms could reshape the planets as surely as any physical force, followed by noosphere concept.

8. VR COLLIDER (7 min, 2020) is a video of short guided tour through the spaces of “VR Collider” project on Mozilla Hubs.

9. Chronicles of Fortinbras (30 min, 35 mm, 2001) is based on the essay collection of the same title by Oksana Zabuzhko, author of the autobiographical prose work “Field Research on Ukrainian Sex” (1996). The director interprets the philosophical text and feminist intonation of the writer’s view of national consciousness in a timeless cultural environment with an associative fabric of words and expressive images. She constructs the imaginary mythological space of the studied phenomenon from metaphorical actions and performances, assemblages of past events and excerpts from historical films. She thus also evokes Ukrainian iconic writer Taras Shevchenko’s approach to the female essence and the lot of women in the Ukraine, represented by the female body (the body of culture), tormented and desecrated here by repugnant dwarfs. The latter symbolise male totality – the source of the Ukraine’s passive fate, past and present. The staged episodes, treating the absurd and the grotesque, allegory and parody, also reflect the Ukrainian literary tradition (irrationality and poeticism) and film (Olexander Dovzhenko). Film is an outstanding example of the new approach to philosophical narration that reflects author’s extensive experience in the arts and multi-media.

This event is organized at IMERA. Places are limited and the presentation of a health pass is required.

Register by sending an e-mail to Constance Moreteau : constance.MORETEAU@univ-amu.fr