Tiffany Sia’s installation invites viewers to experience video in an unconventional way. She follows the traces of King Hu, a martial film director who shot his movies in the Taiwanese countryside. By doing so she offers a visual meditation on the notion of what Salman Rushdie once called the imaginary homeland: the (romanticized) idea that people living in the diaspora develop of their country of birth or origin. In her essayistic work – the publication «On and Off-Screen Imaginaries» – she critically examines vernacular documentary cinema. The projection of the film «The Sojourn» on a curved curtain and «Antipodes II» on a rear view mirror create a sense of disruption, draws the attention to the materiality of the image while also adding a painterly dimension to the medium.

Find out more in the interview with Tiffany Sia.

Ahmed Umar takes souvenirs that have hardened into clichés and transforms them into poetic and spiritual forms, lined up like prayer beads in 15 different poses. He combines materials, such as wood, plaster, rubber or metal, to create smooth, handmade assemblages that seem to glide through one’s hands. In this way, Ahmed Umar demonstrates the complexity of Islam, the diversity of ways in which it is handed down and practiced in different regions, while at the same time drawing attention to the mistaken conviction that spirituality is confined to the written word.

Find out more in the interview with Ahmed Umar.