In parallel to the exhibition “Slow Drift(s) Chapter 2. Larry Achiampong & David Blandy”

Screening curated by Collective First Cut

Saturday 11th January 2025

WITH FILMS BY Meriem Bennani, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Kiluanji Kia Henda

Get your tickets here!

The Balcony has invited the collective First Cut to develop a screening program responding to the exhibition on view: "Slow Drift(s) Chapter 2: Larry Achiampong and David Blandy".

Responding to the multi-layered research that gives life to Larry Achiampong and David Blandy’s trilogy, First Cut has curated a screening event that approaches the founding themes of their work with equally multifaceted perspectives. The selected films offer a non-linear exploration of the politics and psychopathology of colonialism, interweaving past, present, and future. As the Finding Fanon series turns its focus toward friendship, collaboration, and the possibilities of future generations, First Cut’s programme builds on this vision exploring community’s resilience and resistance to forgetting.

PROGRAM:
19.30—Doors open
20.00—Screening works by Meriem Bennani, Francisca Khamis Giacoman, and Kiluanji Kia Henda
21.00—Chat/Q&A/Drinks

Meriem Bennani lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Juxtaposing and mixing the language of reality TV, documentaries, phone footage, animation, and high-production aesthetics, she explores the potential of storytelling while amplifying reality through a strategy of magical realism and humour. She has been developing a shape-shifting practice of films, sculptures and immersive installations, composed with a subtle agility to question our contemporary society and its fractured identities, gender issues and ubiquitous dominance of digital technologies.

Francisca Khamis Giacoman is a Chilean artist from the Palestinian diaspora, currently based in Amsterdam. Through performances, installations, and audiovisual works, Francisca Khamis Giacoman is trying to recall stories of migration and unfold them at the boundaries of fiction and materiality. Her research touches upon language, knowledge production, and accessibility through narrative circulation, focusing on different ways of (re)membering ourselves and others. Actively involved in self-organized projects, Francisca is the founder and CEO of the “Museo del Perro * Honden Museum” in Amsterdam (2023-ongoing), co-founder of “Ediciones Rocas Shop” Cooperative Publishing House in Santiago (2017-23), and Espacio Estamos Bien, an art cooperative in Amsterdam that curates gatherings, publications, and exhibitions.

Kiluanji Kia Henda lives and works in Luanda. In his practice, he uses art as a means of transmitting and constructing history, exploring photography, video, performance, installations, object-sculpture, music and avant-garde theatre as ways of materializing fictional narratives and shifting facts to different temporalities and struggles. Using humor and irony, the artist represents the complexity of themes such as identity, politics, and perceptions of post- independence and modernity in Africa. Working in perverted complicity with historical legacy, he sees the process of appropriation and manipulation of public spaces and structures as different constructions of the collective memory.

First Cut is a platform based in The Hague curating screenings and conversations around independent/radical/experimental films by politically engaged artists. First Cut calls for transformative films that stem from socio-political inquiries. It aims to host artistic interventions and radical responses to our international society and its politics, bridging artists and local communities in The Hague. First Cut invites perspectives from multiple modes of production and backgrounds with which to read our political contexts and reshape a collective imagination. It especially encourages filmmakers with decolonial, feminist, queer and non-normative perspectives to submit their films. First Cut is founded by artists and researchers Cyan Bae, Hattie Wade and Cristina Lavosi.