Filipa César
Mined Soil, 34’, 2012-2014

The film essay Mined Soil revisits the work of the Guinean agronomist Amílcar Cabral, from his studies of the erosion of soil in the Portuguese Alentejo region in the 1950s through to his engagement as one of the leaders of the African Liberation Movement. This line of thought intertwines with documentation of an experimental gold mining site, operated today by a Canadian company and located in the same Portuguese area once studied by Cabral. The reading of the essay explores the space, surfaces and textures of the images, proposing past and present definitions of soil as a repository of memory, trace, exploitation, crisis, arsenal, treasure and palimpsest.

Filipa César, born in 1975 in Porto, Portugal, is an artist and filmmaker interested in the fictional aspects of the documentary and the politics and poetics inherent to moving image. Since 2011, César has been looking into the imaginaries of Guinea-Bissau’s Liberation Movement and its cognitive potencies, developing that research into the ongoing collective project Luta ca caba inda (en. The struggle is not over yet). Her work is widely shown in solo and group exhibitions, biennials and festivals. Her joint work with Louis Henderson, Sunstone (2018) has been previously shown at the Kaunas International Film Festival.

Shirin Sabahi
Borrowed Scenery, 15’, 2017 

Borrowed Scenery (借景 shakkei) is the East Asian principle of integrating the surrounding landscape into the composition of a garden. Since the 1970s, artist Noriyuki Haraguchi (1946—2020) had made a series of in-situ sculptures that aim at acquiring meaning through their thoughtful placement in their surroundings. In 1977, Haraguchi was invited to permanently install an iteration of his sculpture Matter and Mind (Oil Pool) in the atrium of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Matter and Mind is a rectangular steel basin filled with highly reflective used engine oil. Regardless of the artist’s intentions and those of the host museum, the visitors have, over the years, turned this sculpture into a container for smaller objects by throwing coins and other objects into it. The film follows the genesis of Haraguchi’s oil pool sculptures, his use of ephemeral and industrial materials, the interactions with his oil pools in Tehran and elsewhere and the proximity of art to religion and other belief systems.

Mouthful, 36’, 2018

Artist Noriyuki Haraguchi returns to the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art to restore his sculpture Matter and Mind (Oil Pool) — a rectangular steel tub filled with used engine oil. The artwork is permanently installed at the museum’s atrium since its inauguration in 1977. Since the installation of the oil pool, the museum visitors and perhaps the staff had thrown coins and other pocketable objects into it. Curiosity about what lies under the pool’s black reflective surface eventually led to organizing Haraguchi’s visit and the pool’s restoration forty years on in 2017. Mouthful starts from a rumor about the cause of the artwork’s deterioration and follows the labor of restoration, the poolside conversations and the dredged-up keepsake, treasuring the material quality of the sculpture as a container of private and institutional histories.

Shirin Sabahi works with and around moving images. Recent exhibitions and screenings include, Broad Art Museum (Michigan 2020), Savvy Contemporary (Berlin 2020), Centro Botin (Santander 2019), Art Jameel Center (Dubai 2019), Edith-Russ-Haus (Oldenburg 2018) and Beirut Art Center (2018). Her film Landing (2018) won the best experimental film award at the Lisbon Architecture Film Festival and the best short film award at the Asolo Art Film Festival (both 2019). She lives in Berlin where she takes part in the Berlin Program for Artists and hosts PLACES — a series of events where speakers are invited to present a place, existing or otherwise.