The Feminine and the Foreign
LIFT and Art Night present
The Nest Collective bring their cameras abroad to London and Cape Town from their home in Nairobi to create brief, evocative documentaries. Their focus? Feminist, queer and migration activists in each of these cities.
They’ll create profiles of those who push back against the forces that try to sequester and incapacitate minority communities. But it’s not cinema verité, they’ll depict these activists’ lives in a style that evokes memories, injustice, intimacy and solidarity through vibrant and fantasy-filled sounds and visuals.
Performed as a screening of short films with interviews and interventions from The Nest and a series of special guests, The Feminine and the Foreign will bring LIFT and Art Night audiences together for the first time in an event that is sure to offer insight, intelligence and beauty.
To view LIFT 2020 Digital Brochure click here
The Nest Collective (Kenya)
PERFORMANCE INFO:
Location TBC
INTERVIEW LEADS:
Femme/Queer Activism Interviews
Dr. Njoki Ngumi and Dr. Akati Khasiani
Immigration Activism Interviews
Mars Maasai
TECHNICAL LEADS:
Camera
Timi Akindele-Ajani
Sound
Mars Maasai
Post-production and Edit
Noel Kasyoka and Jim Chuchu
Exhibition Design and Presentation
Sunny Dolat and Jim Chuchu
Production and Logistics
Njeri Gitungo
Commissioned by LIFT in partnership with the Institute for Creative Arts at the University of Cape Town and Art Night. Supported by British Council SSA Arts as part of FestivalConnect, British Council Festivals_in Motion, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and LIFT’s Membership Programme.
ART NIGHT
Art Night is London’s largest free contemporary art festival, transforming the city annually for one unforgettable night. Each year, Art Night invites a leading cultural institution or curator to explore the history, culture and architecture of a different part of London, inspiring a series of new commissions, one off events and premieres by international and local artists from all stages of their careers. Art Night contributes to the UK’s art sector through its Legacy programme, which delivers co-commissions, acquisitions for public collections and prolonged display periods – enabling broader audiences to enjoy the programme, year-round. The festival was founded by Ksenia Zemtsova and Philippine Nguyen in 2014.
On Saturday 20 June, London’s most popular contemporary art festival, Art Night, will celebrate its fifth edition and reflect on what the nocturnal event has achieved since its first iteration in 2016.
Transforming iconic and unexpected public spaces within the city from 6.00pm on Saturday 20 June into the early hours of Sunday 21 June, the festival will return to the site of the first edition to celebrate its five-year anniversary: The Strand on the Northbank of the Thames. International auction house Phillips will return as major partner for the fifth year running, having supported each edition of the festival since its inception in 2016.
‘Conversations around race, belongings, gender, sexuality and queerness have stunted, slowed and regressed not just in Kenya, but across the world. Anti-queer, anti-feminist, and racist ideologies in places as varied as London, New York, Nairobi, Delhi and Johannesburg are not vastly different in their strategies to align with mainstream power, and destroy attempts at systemic protection and access for people from marginalised communities.’