ARTIST TALK / ALEX MARTINIS ROE

Join Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Alex Martinis Roe as she discusses the works that comprise her exhibition, To Become Two with Samstag Associate Curator Joanna Kitto.

Friday 23 April
4—5pm
Samstag, Gallery 1

SYMPOSIUM / THREE CONVERSATIONS

Artists draw on historical collections in the creation of new work. In this series of conversations, artists, collection curators and historians come together to discuss cultural agency, the politics of display, colonial legacies, and generative pathways to repair.

James Nguyen & Victoria Pham with Stephen Zagala
Taloi Havini with Professor Nicholas Thomas
James Tylor with Dr Frances Wyld

THU 15 JULY / 10am—12pm (ACST) / A live Q&A with Samstag Curator Gillian Brown and the conversation participants on the topic and issues raised in their respective discussions.

Online
Click here to watch

WORKSHOP / POLITICS OF MEMORY

As part of the presentation of To Become Two, Alex Martinis Roe presents Politics of Memory, a workshop designed for students to examine the politics of storytelling in contemporary art practice and the effects of different kinds of historiographic methods across a range of media, including video installation, documentary film, archival display and sculptural memorial.

Artists engage in history making by questioning given formats and representational conventions, exposing their latent power and reworking them. The production of histories is intimately entwined with the generation of possible futures.

This workshop explores the political responsibility of artistic-historical narratives and their agency in transmitting and shaping the stories they tell.

Monday 12 July—Friday 23 July
Samstag &
SASA Gallery

SCREENING + Q&A / MADISON BYCROFT

Preview the newly commissioned work BIOPIC or Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée, the second Samstag, South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) and SALA Festival commission, followed by conversation between artist Madison Bycroft and Samstag Curator Gillian Brown in which they discuss the complex process of production.

Thursday 5 August
5.30—6.30pm
Mercury Cinema

FEMINISM IN FILM / BORN IN FLAMES

Running in parallel with Alex Martinis Roe: To Become Two, FEMINISM IN FILM invites artists to select and present films with feminism at their core.

First up, artists Virginia Barratt & Francesca da Rimini screen Lizzie Borden's feminist classic Born in Flames (1983).

This thrilling, provocative film is a fantasy of female rebellion set in America ten years after a social democratic cultural revolution. When the black, radical founder of the Woman’s Army, Adelaide Norris, is mysteriously killed a diverse coalition of women – across all lines of race, class, and sexual preference – emerges to blow the System apart.

Following the film, Lizzie Borden joins Virginia & Francesca in a Q&A, on screen from LA.

Saturday 14 August
1.30pm
Mercury Cinema

FEMINISM IN FILM / QUEEN OF KATWE

Musician Elsy Wameyo presents Mira Nair's Queen of Katwe (2016). 

Living in the slum of Katwe in Kampala, Uganda is a constant struggle for 10-year-old Phiona and her family. Her world changes one day when she meets Robert Katende, a missionary who teaches children how to play chess. Phiona becomes fascinated with the game and soon becomes a top player under Katende's guidance. Her success in local competitions and tournaments opens the door to a bright future and a golden chance to escape from a life of poverty.

Saturday 21 August
1.30pm
Mercury Cinema

FEMINISM IN FILM / SHADOW PANIC & ROCKING THE FOUNDATIONS

Artist Alex Martinis Roe screens Shadow Panic (1989) by Margot Nash and Rocking the Foundations (1986) by Pat Fiske.

Shadow Panic is a surrealist experimental film exploring internal and external states of emergency, resistance and personal and collective ‘shadows'. It revolves around three women—The Redhead, The Investigator and The Hothead—whose world’s collide by chance as they move through their separate but interconnected worlds.

Rocking the Foundations explores the controversial New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation. Fiske develops a portrait of this once-powerful union through interviews with former union members and officials, archival film, and television news coverage of some of its actions.

Watch a Q&A with Margot Nash, Pat Fiske & Alex Martinis Roe here.

Saturday 28 August
1.30pm
Mercury Cinema

FEMINISM IN FILM / LES RENDEZ-VOUS D'ANNA

Samstag scholar Kate Power presents Belgian director Chantal Akerman’s Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (1978), a film Kate describes as a "quiet exploration of yearning and isolation through mostly gesture and framing of architectural spaces."

Read Kate's introduction here.

In one of Akerman’s most penetrating character studies, Anna, an accomplished filmmaker (Aurore Clément), makes her way through a series of anonymous European cities to promote her latest movie.

Saturday 4 September
1.30pm
Mercury Cinema

FEMINISM IN FILM is supported by the South Australian Government through Arts South Australia.

PERFORMANCE / VIRGINIA BARRATT & EM KÖNIG

Exosmosis is a new durational performance by Virginia Barratt & Em König [sadworm] centered around interaction between Barratt as performer and König’s responsive live soundscape.

In this space, the artists explore the pivotal role annihilation has to play in transformation and growth in a work encompassing light, a wall of sound, sticky props, and the body.

Watch Virginia Barratt in conversation with Frances Barrett, discussing panic, annihilation and Exosmosis.

Friday 10 December
Samstag, Gallery 1