12–1pm
'The Woman Carrying a Basin Over Her Head‘ (Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong, 2023, 9’10”)
Screening followed by a conversation with the artists and Nick Yu, Head of Programme
Commissioned by the Asia Culture Center (ACC), Gwangju, Leung Chi Wo + Sara Wong have produced a short film that appropriates a photograph by Kim Ki-Chan (1938-2005), a work from the ACC Archive. In this photograph, four women walk with a basin on their heads in an alley near the bustling Seoul Station in 1970. This way of carrying basins was used to facilitate people in carrying items in crowded streets and demonstrates the body's movement that adapts and changes with the structural forces of the city. The figures’ static gestures in the photograph are re-played by another woman (Park So Young) born many years later, showing the inextricable encounter between individuals and the prevailing socio-historical systems behind their lives as women.
1–2pm
Lunch Break
2pm
Short Films by He Xiaopei
Screening followed by Zoom conversation with director He Xiaopei, and Rachel Be-Yun Wang, Curatorial Research Fellow at Chisenhale Gallery
'Polyamorous Family', 2010, 26'
In this early film, the artist interviews her own polyamorous family, which holds together people of different places and spectrum of skin colours, black, white, yellow, and brown. The director and her family talks about love and jealousy, sexuality and desire, and all the joys and challenges of being in a family.
'The Lucky One', 2011, 36'
The artist interviews an HIV-positive woman in China with only a few months left, who leaves a record of her life history and audio diaries, ultimately revealing her hidden desires and final wishes.
5pm
'Safe Distance' (dir. by Jamie Chi, 2022, 32’)
Screening followed by a conversation with director Jamie Chi, producer Qiu Bai, and Junko Asano
In the first chapter of a multi-part documentary project documenting the lives of queer Chinese in the UK, Safe Distance delves into the life of Qiubai, the first LGBTQ+ activist who challenged the Chinese Ministry of Education in court over homophobic textbooks. Covering Qiubai’s activism in mainland China and in the UK, Chi’s intimate film-portrait explores how the Sinophone queer community positions themselves in different regions and cultures, especially during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.