Gentle Tremor

The programme Gentle Tremor: New Horizons of Video Art in Asia encompasses recent work from eight Asian artists, who originate from Hong Kong, Japan, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, whose main interest is discovering new horizons for moving images. In the attempt to accomplish their goal, they explore the limits among video art and its potential regarding the future development of moving images, as well as the construction of new narratives and new ways of narration. While considering the individuality and singularity of each and every one of the productions that will be screened, the cultural difference that characterizes them and the connection that can be established between the symbolic landscapes cannot be overlooked. In a world that is divided and becoming more and more polarized, the director of CIFRA believes that art can play a crucial role as much as in similar cultures as in cultures that are the opposite, by introducing changes in the power dynamics that will improve the consciousness of the viewer. The planet as we know it today is a world that is in a crisis that can only be changed thanks to the scientific and technological inventions, and the constant innovation in the visual arts.   

One of the first productions that will be screened is A Palm, a Fountain, an Umbrella (2024), by Sharon Cheuk Wun Lee, who makes a poem in video format that explores the disturbances that take place in the city where he lives, due to the sociopolitical changes, bilingualism and its influence in the cultural identity of the affected citizens. Ebony Dreams (2019), by Eri Saito, which is in itself an experiment that explores how our bodies move unconsciously, derivations from cases such as somnambulism, whose movements are seen as inexplainable by others. The intriguing and surreal video Ringo (2020) by Amie Barouh evokes memories from childhood and our inner child within the current context. The sarcastic video Lerne Deutsch in Meiner Küche (2020), by Popo Fan, immerses the viewers in some kind of cooking and German language class that takes an absurd twist. Axl presents for the first time his latest project Joseph’s Midnight Party (2024). In The Story of Nanka Gulu and Iron Hawk (2021), by Chen Zhou, the spectators encounter the ancestral wisdom of an intelligent dron that has fled. Mother Water Gulbib Balkhash (2024), by Almagul Menlibayeva, distort our comprehension of geography to make us discover new worlds. The programme concludes with Curse of Staged Atavism (2024) by Shuree Sarantuya, a project that was awarded the CIFRA Award in the Art Night Venezia this summer.  

The programme was selected by Olga Shishko y Anastasia Stravinsky. 

PROGRAMME 

• Sharon Cheuk: A palm, a fountain, an umbrella (2024), 10’24’’ 

• Eri Saito: Ebony Dream (2019), 3’23’’ 

• Amie Barouh: Ringo (2020), 3’27’’ 

• Popo Fan: Lerne Deutsch in meiner Küche (2020), 2’22’’ 

• Axl Joseph‘s Midnight Party (2024), 22’’ 

• Chen Zhou: The Story of Nanka Gulu and Iron Hawk (2021), 13’38’’ 

• Almagul Menlibayeva: Mother Water Gulbib Balkhash (2024),16’ 

• Shuree Sarantuya: Curse of Staged Atavism (2024), 11’41’’ 

Sharon Cheuk: A palm, a fountain, an umbrella (2024), 10’24’’  

Sharon Cheuk Wun LEE (Hong Kong), is a multidisciplinary artist that live and works in New York. She works with perishable materials that allude to the loss and the disappearance of memory and history. At the same time, she is concerned with cultural dislocation, itinerant belongings and women in colonial histories. Her artistic research revolves around Hong Kong, as a city to pass by with a peripheral and unclassifiable culture. Lee graduated and obtained her master’s degree in fine Arts from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and she is currently doing another master’s in Fine Arts at the University of Columbia in New York. Her recent exhibitions are «If Tomorrow Never Comes» with Kyotographie in the Art Centre of Kioto (Japón, 2023) and «emo gym» in Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong, 2022). Her work has been published in ArtAsiaPacific, Harvard Advocate, Artomity, and more. She has been part of artistic projects of the Art Promotion Office (Hong Kong, 2021), Peer to Peer (RR. UU, Hong Kong, 2020) and the Hong Kong International Photo Festival (Hong Kong, 2020). She was chosen for the KG+SELECT and the Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2023) and won the prize WMA Master in 2019. She has also won various grants and held artist residencies at New York, Taipei and Vienna.  

Eri Saito: Ebony Dream (2019), 3’23’’  

Eri Saito (Japan) is an artist that focuses on video. Her works are about invisible and uncertain dynamics such as memory and cognitive experience. Her most recent exhibitions are «Visitor Cue» (Yamanaka Suplex annex building MINE, Osaka, 2023), «how to make friends» (Art Center Ongoing, Tokio, 2023), «Until It Gets Dark» (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokio, 2021) y «1GB» (Spiral Hall, Tokio, 2020). Her work has been exhibited at festivals such as the European Media Art Festival (Osnabrück, Alemania, 2023), The Compulsive Landscape: Eri Saito & Masanobu Nakamura (Collaborative Cataloging Japan, Philadelphia, EE. UU, 2022), and the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2022 (Photographic Art Museum of Tokyo, 2022). She has also won the second prize in the first e-flux Film Award which was awarded in 2024. 

Amie Barouh: Ringo (2020), 3’27’’  

Amie Barouh (Japan/France) is an artist who makes films, documentaries as well as visual essays, inspired by her personal experiences. After having lived in Tokyo until she was 17 years old, Amie Barouh moved to Paris, where she met the Romany community and decided to submerge in it. This experience influenced the relationship with the world that she lived in, and she started to use video format to encompass different worlds. The proximity that she maintains with the people that she works with resembles the writing of a cinematic diary, that seeks to give voice to those marginalised in society. Fuelled more by affinities than by the desire to make a film, the artist’s camera, third eye, and arm go through the real time relationships that her, as a documenter, but above all as a person maintain with the individuals she works with.  

Popo Fan: Lerne Deutsch in meiner Küche (2020), 2’22’’  

Popo Fan (China/Germany) is a chinese filmmaker, writer, artist and curator. His documentaries Queer y «Family Trilogy» have had a significant impact on the Chinese society. In 2017, he left Pekin to live in Berlin, where since then he has been writing and directing short film scripts that address intersectional themes such as LGBTQ+ issues, migration, and sex. He is the guest director of the streaming platform XConfessions of Erika Lust. He has occasionally acted in video projects by artists like Shu Lea Cheang, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Zayne Armstrong y Ellinor Aurora Aasgaard. In addition, Popo has worked with the Beijing Queer Film Festival for more than a decade, and he is the guest curator of SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA of Berlin. Currently he is centred in developing his first fantasy feature film «Grammatik».  

Axl Joseph‘s Midnight Party (2024), 22’’  

Axl Le (Yi Le) (China/Norway) is a visual and filmmaker artist. He mainly works with digital media and his artistic practices include video/film, 3D animation, fames, artificial intelligence technology and virtual reality (VR).  Since 2016, he tries to make projects that explore and reflect on the relationship between technology and cultural life, as well as the connection between technology, science and nature in the digital era, considering the future development of humanity. His work has been published in platforms such as NOWNESS Asia, Videotage HK, Videoclub and Arte Tracks. He has also had exhibitions in fairs such as Art Basel HK, Microclima Venezia, Siggraph, Esea contemporary, CICA Museum, Tank Shanghai and the Himalayan Center Shanghai. His work has been highly commended and awarded at several international festivals of animated cinema.  

Chen Zhou: The Story of Nanka Gulu and Iron Hawk (2021), 13’38’’  

Chen Zhou (China) is an artist whose work has been presented at multiple festivals and exhibitions around the world. He primarily works with painting, video and performance art, focusing on the human experience through an existential perspective. In his first videos, he explored the absurd of the contemporary life, the performative and deceptive aspects of identity, and the loneliness and alienation in the virtual worlds. Since the pandemic, he has been focusing more on painting and performance. His studies of Buddhist philosophy studies have greatly influenced his work, endowing it interiorly of spiritual force, aura, and a surrealist oriental style. In this phase, Chen has begun to explore the relationships between the body, space, perception, the soul and energy. He also incorporates images of water, fire, earth, smoke and the bones, using methods such as spatial arrangement, rituals and meditation, to create liminal sensory space. By doing this, he plans to explore the most subtle dimensions of human existence. 

Almagul Menlibayeva: Mother Water Gulbib Balkhash (2024),16’  

Shuree Sarantuya (Mongolia/Germany) is a mediatic artist and activist that has been living in Colonia since 2019. She was born and grew up in Ulan Bator (Mongolia). She graduated from the Mongolian University of Culture and Arts in 2016, majoring in film direction and broadcasting. Until February 2024 she studied at the Academy of Visual Arts of Colonia, focusing on video content based on game engine. Most part of her work is centred on ethnic minorities, the last nomad tribes, and the indigenous people of the north, east, and Central Asia.  Her practice is based on artistic research and nomadic knowledge, to create an experimental process where she uses different digital media, with the intention of representing the constant transition/migration from the home of a nomad and a sedentary lifestyle. Shuree Santuya won CIFRA prize last summer.  

Shuree Sarantuya: Curse of Staged Atavism (2024), 11’41’’  

Almagul Menlibayeva (Kazakhstan/Germany) is a contemporary artist that works primarily with multichannel video, photography and installations using a mixed technique. She lives and works in both Germany and Kazakhstan. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Biennale of Sydney (Australia), Biennale of Venice, Biennale of Moscow (Russia), and the International Biennale of Gangwon (South Korea). Menlibayeva’s work tackles the issues related with critical exploration of the soviet modernity; the social, economic and political transformations in the post-soviet Central Asia; and the decolonial reinterpretation of gender issues, environmental degradation and the nomadic and EuroAsian indigenous cosmologies and mythologies.