January 9, 2011 | 4.00 pm 
Little Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai

As TJ Demos has argued in his essay Sabotaging the Future: The Essay Films of The Otolith Group (2009), Otolith 1 (2003), Otolith II (2007) and Otolith III (2009) (Otolith Trilogy) constitute a ‘remarkable series of essay films that engage the uncertain interval between aesthetic and political commitments.’ The Otolith Trilogy proposes temporal deconstruction that folds together past present and future’ thereby opening a route ‘to challenge the current unfolding of globalization, particularly its outcome presumed to be the result of historical inevitability’ The screenings will be followed by a discussion between the artists Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sager, curator Chus Martinez and critic Shanay Jhaveri. The Otolith Group’s exhibition ‘Westfailure’ will be on view at Project 88 from January 11 – 31, 2012.

The Otolith Group, based in London, UK., is an award winning artist led collective and organisation founded by Anjalika Sager and Kodwo Eshun in 2002 that integrates film and video making, artists writing, workshops, exhibition curation, publication and developing public platforms for the close readings of the image in contemporary society. The Group’s work is formally engaged with research led projects exploring the legacies and potentialities of artists led proposals around the document and the essay film, the archive, the aural and sonic medium, speculative futures and science-fictions.

Chus Martinez is dOCUMENTA (13) Head of Department, and Member of Core Agent Group, as well as Associate Curator at MACBA, Barcelona, where she was Chief Curator from 2008 to 2010. Previously she was Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005-08) and Artistic Director of Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2002-05). For the 50th Biennale di Venezia (2005), Martinez curated the National Pavilion of Cyprus, and in 2010 served as a Curatorial Advisor for the 29th Bienal de Sao Paulo. She lectures regularly and has written numerous catalogue texts and critical essays.

Shanay Jhaveri is a Phd. candidate at the Royal College of Art, London. He graduated from Brown University, concentrating in Art Semiotics and the History of Art and Architecture. He has edited a volume of essays titled Outsider Films on India: 1950-1990 and has curated film programmes at Tate Modern, Frieze and Iniva. He divides his time between Mumbai and London.

May 27, 2011 | 6.00 pm
M. C. Ghia Hall, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai

To dissent is to ask why and is fundamental to creating spaces for negotiation, debate and dialogue. The erroneous invocation of detention laws, charges of sedition and the incarceration of Binayak Sen by the Chhattisgarh court led to global protests of dissent against repression of human rights in a democracy. A public health activist and civil rights defender, Sen has spent over three decades providing healthcare to deprived tribal communities and unorganised labour while advocating non-violent political engagement to resolve societal conflicts. The public criticism for securing his release acquired the dimensions of a mass movement, expressing an over-arching concern of incarceration of other citizens under such outdated laws. The suspension of his sentence and release on bail on the orders of the Supreme Court of India question the material inconsistencies and structural flaws of his case and continue to be factors for debate in public conversations and pedagogic enquiry. His release is not a closure but inspires new possibilities of change and offers alternative ways of thinking amidst sustained dialogue.

Right to Dissent, convened by Tushar Joag, an initiative consisting of an art exhibition, film screenings, a panel discussion and performance in Mumbai continues this interrogation against questionable verdicts and comes together in solidarity for citizens denied of their rights for democratic aspirations.

Minnie Vaid | A Doctor To Defend: The Binayak Sen Story (2010)

Anand Patwardhan | Prisoners of Conscience (1978)

March 17, 2011 | 6.00 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

The Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron were jointly awarded the 2001 Pritzker Prize, their profession’s highest honor, for combining ‘the artistry of an age-old profession with the fresh approach of a new century’s technical capabilities’. Over the past twenty years they have been involved in finding inventive architectural solutions to building a diverse range of projects — domestic, municipal and commercial — from a modest switching station for trains to a strikingly innovative approach to the design of a winery. Their highest profile commission to date was the conversation of London’s giant Bankside power station into Tate Modern, acclaimed by their peers, the media and the public alike.

Visiting examples of Herzog and de Meuron’s ground-breaking style, this film reflects their capacity to astonish and explore the way in which they transform what might otherwise be ordinary shapes, materials and surfaces through new treatments and techniques. Their perspective on and approach to architecture; their design dialogue; the way their strengths and weaknesses complement each other, and their collaborations with others, particularly artists, will all be brought into focus to give a fascinating insight into the cutting edge of architecture today.

January 20, 2011 | 6.00 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

Manufactured Landscapes is the striking documentary on the world and work of renowned artist, Edward Burtynsky. Internationally acclaimed for his large-scale photographs of ‘manufactured landscapes’ — quarries, recycling yards, factories, mines and dams — Burtynsky creates stunningly beautiful art from civilization’s materials and debris. The film follows him through China, as he shoots the evidence and effects of that country’s massive industrial revolution. With breathtaking sequences, such as the opening tracking shot through an almost endless factory, the filmmakers also extend the narratives of Burtynsky’s photographs, allowing us to meditate on our impact on the planet and witness both the epicenters of industrial endeavor and the dumping grounds of its waste.

Manufactured Landscapes powerfully shifts our consciousness about the world and the way we live in it, without simplistic judgments or reductive resolutions.

December 13, 2010 | 6.00 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

On August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic divided Berlin in two with a 95-mile-long wall which also isolated the three Western sectors from the surrounding area of Brandenburg. The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall” by GDR authorities, implying that neighbouring West Germany had not been fully de-Nazified. The West Berlin city government referred to it as the “Wall of Shame” while condemning the Wall’s restriction on freedom of movement. Along with the separate and much longer Inner German border (IGB) that demarcated the border between East and West Germany, both borders came to symbolize the “Iron Curtain” between Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc. It became a symbol of the Cold War and the division between communism and capitalism.

The documentary film, ‘The Berlin Wall 1969-1989’ has the original film sequences covering the period from the building of the Berlin wall in 1961 to its fall in 1989. The date on which the Wall fell is considered to have been November 9, 1989 but the Wall in its entirety was not torn down immediately. Starting that evening and in the days and weeks that followed, people came to the wall with sledgehammers or otherwise hammers and chisels to chip off souvenirs, demolishing lengthy parts of it in the process and creating several unofficial border crossings. New border crossings continued to be opened through the middle of 1990, including the Brandenburg Gate on December 22, 1989. Several sections of the wall stand as memorials today.

November 25, 2010 | 6.00 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

The Bridge is a 2006 documentary film by Eric Steel that tells the stories of a handful of individuals who committed suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge in 2004. Director Eric Steel and his crew spent an entire year looking carefully at the Golden Gate Bridge. Running cameras for almost every daylight minute, they documented close to two dozen suicides, and many of the near fatal movements that took place. This powerful imagery is accompanied by incredibly frank, often heart-wrenching interviews with families, friends, witnesses and several of the surviving attempters. The film was inspired by an article entitled ‘Jumpers, written by Tad Friend which appeared in The New Yorker magazine in 2003.

In 1935, Frank Lloyd Wright designed a country house for the Kaufmann family over a small stream in Western Pennsylvania. He named it Falling Water. It remains one of Wright’s most acclaimed buildings. Falling Water, perhaps more than any other building, exemplifies Wright’s concept of ‘organic’ architecture, which seeks to harmonize people and nature by integrating the building, the site, and its inhabitants into a unified whole. It has been named ‘the best all-time work of American architecture’ by the American Institute of Architects. And today, the iconic image of the house over the waterfall remains a testament to a great architect working at the height of his career.

The story of Falling Water is about the relationships between site, the building, the clients, and the architect. Lynda Waggoner, director of the documentary, along with architectural historian, Richard Cleary, draw upon personal experiences and historical records to explain the unique circumstances which came together to create this true American masterpiece.

October 6, 2010 | 4.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

The screening of the feature film, The Japanese Wife, based on an eponymous short story written by Kunal Basu will be followed by a conversation between Aparna Sen, Kunal Basu and Rahul Bose.

The film, directed by Aparna Sen, revolves around a young village school teacher (Rahul Bose) who marries his Japanese pen friend (Chigusa Takaku) through letters, without their ever setting eyes on each other, their intimacy of words tested ultimately by life’s miraculous upheavals.

Kunal Basu teaches at Oxford University’s Said Business School. His novels include The Opium Clerk (2001), The Miniaturist (2003) and Racists (2006). His most recent work is a collection of short stories, The Japanese Wife (2008).

Aparna Sen is a critically acclaimed filmmaker, script writer, and actress. She is the winner of several National and International film festival awards. She began her career as a director in 1981 with 36 Chowringhee Lane. She followed up this early success with several other films, notably Paroma, Sati, Yugant, Paromitar Ek Din, and 15 Park Avenue.

Rahul Bose is an actor, director, screenwriter, social activist, and rugby player. Bose has appeared in films such as Mr. and Mrs. Iyer, Kalpurush, Anuranan, Antaheen, Laptop and The Japanese Wife.

September 9, 2010 | 6.00 pm
Goethe Hall, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai

We all live in Marshall McLuhan’s wake. Fascinated by the role technology played in transforming our lives, one of the 20th century’s most famous intellectuals realized, with stunning accuracy, the impact the digital age would have on our social, spiritual, economic and ideological selves. ‘The global village’ and ‘the medium is the message’ are among the most quoted phrases of our time. Now, over twenty years after his death, in the midst of an era of Internet, virtual and wired technologies McLuhan’s Wake explores this enduring truth. McLuhan’s life and career are thoroughly examined, and his 20th-century ideas are tested to see how they hold up in the 21st century.

Grounded in McLuhan’s last scholarly work, ‘The Laws of Media’, this film is a visually dazzling and poetic film, translating these laws into an illuminating and revealing text, haunted by archival footage and the voice of McLuhan himself. It includes commentary by scholars like Eric McLuhan, Neil Postman, Lewis I.apham, and journalist Patrick Watson. The film is narrated by renowned performance artist, Laurie Anderson.

This DVD compilation, Resistance[s], includes eight films and videos from Middle Eastern and North African artists. It’s a panorama of contemporary experimental creativity from this region of the world. As international travellers, these filmmakers have forged their identities with the different cultures that they have encountered through periods of migration and exile. Using images to lead the narrative, each artist succeeds in raising fundamental questions relating to humanity, politics, and aesthetics.

The richness and diversity of the films presented on this DVD are a testament to the Arab world’s important contribution to contemporary art and cinema. These films are not in themselves a form of resistance against a particular system but are rather manifestations of resistance through thinking and filmmaking, images, and sounds. They are not about negative and reactive resistance in the context of troubling times, nor are they representing militant resistance looking to emancipation. These are not political films but ways of politically creating films, to resist through art in a positive way.

Dansons, Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Algeria/France) I Transit, Taysir Batniji (Palestine/France) I Dieu me pardonne, Mounir Fatmi (Morocco/France) I Wet Tiles, Lamya Gargash (UAE) I Allahu Akbar, Usama AIshaibi (lraq/USA) K3 (Les Femmes), Frederique Devaux (France/Algeria) I untitled part 3b: (as if) beauty never ends…, Joyce Salloum Lebanon/(Canada) I Ca sera beau. From Beyrouth with Love, Wael Noureddine (Lebanon/France)