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still Allegory of Cave Men (Imran Channa)

Imran Channa: Landscapes, Consciousness, Colonialism

Eye on Art: Imran Channa: Landscapes, Consciousness, Colonialism

Eye's Artist in Residence, Imran Channa, presents the works he created using Eye's collection. The programme includes the screening of Channa's feature-length film Allegory of Cave Men, an introduction by artist, writer and former director of the Jan van Eyck Academy Lex ter Braak and a conversation moderated by Eye's senior curator Mark Paul Meyer.

poster Eye on Art: Imran Channa: Landscapes, Consciousness, Colonialism
Imran Channa is interested in landscapes as a representation of national identity and consequently also as an instrument of colonial dominance. Over the past years as Eye's Artist in Residence Channa worked with the collection of Eye to create two new works: Promised Land and Allegory of Cave Men. Promised Land is an interactive three-channel installation that allows the visitor to take a wander through landscapes meticulously designed and drawn and inspired by films that were made in the former Dutch East Indies.

The second project, Allegory of Cave Men, is a feature-length film which takes us into a journey through different interwoven realities, times and events with seven different stories told by seven sleepers in a cave shot in the Province of Sindh in Pakistan. Each personal, poetic and political narration offers a complex journey into a dream-like state to the deep dark places where some truths are hidden to be dug up and tell a story. Each narration is followed and supported by a visual collage with footage from Eye's collection.

Imran Channa

Imran Channa is a Pakistani visual artist who lives and works in Pakistan and in the Netherlands and he was Eye's Artist in Residence 2021. Channa works with different art media (installation, drawing, painting, digital, moving image and sculpture) and draws attention to the ingredients required for the process of documentation, highlighting how history is recorded, framed and manufactured via photography, archaeology and literature. Channa is interested in the role played by these modes in the perversion of knowledge and the construction of consciousness.

Artist in Residence

In 2016 Eye Filmmuseum celebrated the 70th anniversary of its collection with the launch of a new residency programme. As of 2017, this initiative welcomes invited artists and scholars to explore and creatively reuse archival material within the Eye collection.

The Village Detective: A Song Cycle

The programme will be followed by the screening of Bill Morrison's The Village Detective: A Song Cycle (tickets are sold separately). A film which examines the life of Soviet actor Mikhail Zharov after several reels of 35mm film were discovered off the coast of Iceland in 2016.

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Special screenings

Details

Production year

2022

Length

120 min.

Event language

English

Moderator

Mark Paul Meyer

Country

NL

Part of

Eye on Art

Eye on Art is a programme on the intersection between film and other arts. Eye on Art keeps up with current events, with presentations on contemporary artists and programmes that coincide with important exhibitions, manifestations and Eye activities.

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still #59 (Joost Rekveld, 2023)
still Allegory of Cave Men (Imran Channa)
still Allegory of Cave Men (Imran Channa)
still Promised Land Installation (Imran Channa)

Promised Land Installation

From 5 through 11 September, you can visit Imran Channa's interactive video game for free in Eye. The game immerses you in a 3D environment inspired by films made in the former Dutch East Indies found in Eye’s collection.

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