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Filmed in a neglected expat housing complex in Hawalli, this out of context mirage disorients the familiarity or nostalgia of the space. The multicultural neighborhood vibrates with a multicultural working force who have consciously migrated from their diverse backgrounds to participate in the daily routine designated by a profiting developer. The tiling of the colonnade, as is the tiling of the dress, is reflective of the blurring of these expat cultures to camouflage within the existing- the existing which is not only foreign to them but foreign to the space - creating the out of context "Where am I?" phenomenon. These diverse cultures try to adapt to a "?" culture imposed by another country whilst struggling to identify between pre-imposed ethnic stereotypes and their traditional heritage. The freedom of the body is limited to the disproportion of the imposed cage, irritated within the larger cage of the structure.

Dana Aljouder is a designer, writer, and performance artist who graduated with a Bachelors Architecture from Pratt Institute in 2009. She received the Twinings Scholarship to research allegories of the Medici in Renaissance Art in Florence, and is currently an academic researcher for the Kuwait Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2014. She has also presented her furniture "The Chair" at Higgins Hall Gallery in Brooklyn in 2009 and "Kursi" at the Design Terminal in Budapest in 2013. She has worked with OOS on the winebox installations of the Albert Reichmuth showroom in Zurich. Aljouder has also collaborated with sound artist Bassem Mansour at the Beirut Art Center show "Exposures" and Altofest Performance Festival in Naples in 2012 and 2013.

More and more we communicate through our own way of thinking, without trying to understand the mentality, background, or politics of the 'other' one. "Untitled": he's standing behind the window, using all his senses. In comes dialogue.

Bassam Youssef Alkhouri is an artist originally from Katana, Syria. He has a Bachelor of Visual Communication from the Academy of Fine Arts, Damascus, Syrai, where he studied from 1988 to 1993, and a Postgraduate Research & Practice in Art from the Dutch Art Institute, Enschede, The Netherlands, where he studied from 2003 to 2005. His exhibitions include: May 2006 - "Here as the center of the world", Dutch Art Institute, NIASD Damascus, Syria; May/June 2006 - La 6eme edition des journees de la photographie de Damas, Le Centre culturel francais de Damas, Damascus, Syria; March 2006 - Festival International d?Art Video Casablanca, Morrocco; May 2005 - Open Daizzz Dutch Art Institute, Enschede, The Netherlands; A Consumption of Justice Arts Center Dyarbakir, Art Gallery of the Greater Municipality of Diyarbakir, Turkey; April 2005 - Arts Centre, Dyarbakir, Turkey; November 2004 - Crossing The Border Opstandingskerk, Enschede, The Netherlands; April 2004 - The Big Communication Nanjing Art Academy, China; March 2003 - Howden Festival, East Yorkshire, England; April 2003 - Assyrian New Year Convention City Hall, Hengelo, The Netherlands; March 2002 - AL-Tajalliat (The Visions) Holy cross halls, Damascus, Syria; Sept. 2000 - Darat Al Funun The Arts Home, Amman, Jordan; May 2000 - Passion Week, The Armenian Church, Damascus, Syria; May 1997 - Passion Week, The Round Theatre, Damascus, Syria; Jan. 1994 - Many and Almanawia Goethe Institute, Damascus, Syria. Since Alkhouri's arrival in The Netherlands in 2004, he has become interested in working with video, derived from his experiences of daily life.

“Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U.” is a film written and directed by Italian collective ALMARE. The film is set in a future society, in which an imaginary technology called ECHO detects on any surface sound waves imprinted over centuries, making them readable as an archaeological sound-find. “Life Chronicles” follows the voice diary entries of researcher Dorothea Ïesj. Her precarious financial situation drove her into sound-finds trafficking, especially in ancient erotic sounds. Thus began a smuggling network run with her friends and colleagues Juliette, Tancred and Miss Lowenhaupt. Thanks to them, Dorothea receives a scholarship funded by the military industry and the powerful fraternity S.P.U., to study antique warfare sounds. During her research, Dorothea extracts a sequence of cannon shots and Soviet naval sirens. This discovery arouses the interest of a range of misfit buyers who will stop at nothing to get hold of those «talking relics». Entirely filmed from movable type prints "Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U." is an imageless film which straddles the borders between radio drama, cinema and literature. The screenplay is written in a dystopian language that mixes ancient and contemporary Italian and openly alters excerpts from essays and novels.

Founded in Turin in 2017 by Amos Cappuccio, Giulia Mengozzi, Luca Morino and Gabriele Rendina Cattani, ALMARE is an artistic-curatorial collective dedicated to contemporary practices that use sound as an expressive medium. ALMARE works between artistic and curatorial practices, through writing, collective research, sound and music production, concert organisation, performance lectures, talks and exhibitions. In 2020, ALMARE inaugurated the production of its first feature film and audio-drama “Life Chronicles of Dorothea Ïesj S.P.U.”

The Majority Never Has Right on its Side is a film project about the Summerhill School in England, established in 1921 and still open. The school is known for its anti-authoritarian pedagogy built on the egalitarian principles of A.S. Neill, a socialist schoolmaster from Scotland often described as a “cynical utopian”. The film looks at the school today in relation to its “image” by using the school’s own film and video archive.

Emanuel Almborg’s work is often research-based and includes film, photography, installation and lectures and deals with themes around community and communication, utopian imagination, history and education. His work has recently been shown at Moderna Museet, Malmö and Elizabeth Foundation, New York. He finished the Whitney Independent Study program in New York, 2015 and is currently a PhD candidate at The Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm, Sweden.

Newsreel can be seen as an attempt to depict and deconstruct the aesthetics of TV news with a starting point in a real Swedish Channel 4 news broadcast. Today news play a big role in our everyday lives. We become more and more dependent on and use to news medias informative qualities. They make us aware of our surrounding world and the global debate. At the same time one could argue that the news broadcast often rests upon a narrative structure that can be traced back trough the history of cinema. Newsreel try?s to explore, if and how the newsreader, the studio set, and the structure of the news broadcast relates to narratological rules and what happens if one breaks them. If the purpose with news is to inform us in an intelligible way about important and urgent issues and events, I want to take a starting point in what makes something intelligible and open up for the bigger question; what is intelligibility? By separating news from the effective method that communicates its content I want to create the possibility to take a step back and look at the news broadcast in a different way.

Emanuel almborg www.sakerna.se/emanuel Born in Stockholm, Sweden 1981, lives and works in London and Stockholm. Education: 2005 ? 2007 MFA, Fine art Goldsmiths College, London
 2001 - 2004 BA, Fine art Konstfack, Stockholm 
Selected Group Exhibitions and Solo Shows: 2008 MI2 B.I.G ProjectSpace, K44, Athens 2008 Loop international festival and fair for video art, Barcelona 2008 Videotheque Sala Rekalde, Bilbao 2008 Auction in a suitcase, 1:1 projects, Rome 2007 One must be so careful these days. Alma Enterprises, London 2007 MFA Degree show, Goldsmiths College, London 2007 Michael Poppyfield projects, Cal Arts, Los Angeles 2006 Goldsmiths MFA survey, Gallery white Box, New York 2006 Rag and Bone, Three Colts Gallery, London 2006 The Union, Collaborative project at Gallery Meals & SUVs, London 2005 Sakerna, magazine/installation, Stockholm ArtFair, Stockholm 2004 Been Here Too Long, Video, Gallery SAK, Stockholm 2004 The Second City, Video, Group show at Kulturhuset (Culture House) Stockholm 2003 Första Saken, Collaborative project at Gallery Konstfack, Stockholm 2002 Hyères Festival des arts de la Mode, France Other Projects: 2007 Artist Clothing at Tensta konsthall, photographer for project. Catalogue and poster. 2005 Beckmans Initiator/Tutor for workshop at Beckmans college Stockholm. 2004 Andra Saken Magazine (Distributed around the world) 2003 Första Saken Magazine (Distributed around the world) 2004 www.sakerna.se Website 2003-2006 Founder, Editor, Photographer, filmmaker, Sakerna Magazine and Project (www.sakerna.se)   Selected Bibliography:   2006 Sede, (Magazine) 2006 Influences, Die Gestalten Verlag (collection of art/desig book) 2005 Übersee, Die Gestalten Verlag (collection of art/design Book) 2002 Super, Die Gestalten Verlag (collection of art/design Book) 2001 Desire, Steidl (collection of photography Book) 
 



The Hippocratic oath is known as a golden ideal standard of ethics for professionals working in the field of medical science. The Hippocratic oath and its modern version is relevant as a division between the power of killing and medical treatment. An extract of oath is chosen emphasize a moral pledge, which starts with negative form promise – I will not. Repetitive militaristic movements and hunting simulation is used as an imperative of security forces, defense, discipline and power relations in biotechnology context.

Bon Alog (LT) is a media artist. She graduated BA in Photography and Media arts at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and BA in creative industries at Vilnius Gediminas technical university. Bon works with video, film, installations and photography.

The characteristics of our subconsciousness has its own model of reality. Human-being is trying to distinguish where simulation starts and ends. But the self-reflection of consciousness is full of absurdity itself... What is REAL? And what is REALLY happening?

2015 - present BA in Photography and Media art, Vilnius Academy of Arts (Lithuania) 2017.10 - 2018.02 Photography and Time-based arts, Bucharest national university of Arts (Romania) 2009 - 2013 BA in Creative industries, Vilnius Gediminas technical university (Lithuania) 2012 Spring semester - Multimedia, Tomas Bata university (Czech Republic)

Cities do not repeat themselves; they transmute. The city of Havana is portrayed in Terranova as a phantasmagorical, magical, and sensory space. An urban landscape created through reflections, glimpses of other cities, and visions of the future.

Director and photographer. Graduated in the Documentary Filmmaking at the lnternational School of Cinema and TV (ElCTV) in San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba. His documentary "The Farewell" (2015) had its international premiere at lDFA; it was awarded for Best Film in the Aciertos category of FlCUNAM and obtained the Full Frame President Award. "Duel" (2016) premiered at Cinema du Réel; it won the award for Best Short Film at the 32nd Mar del Plata Film Festival and Best Short Film at the 58th Popoli Festival. His feature film "The Project" (2017) had its world premiere at Visions du Réel, it won the FlPRESCl Award at the 60 Dok Leipzig. "Terranova" (2020), a medium-length film co-directed with Alejandro Pérez, won the Ammodo Tiger for Best Short Film at the Rotterdam Festival. His latest film, "Abissal" (2021), had its premiere at Visions du Réel, won the Audience Award at Documenta Madrid, 2021 and won the Golden Dove Dok Leipzig, 2021. Between 2017 and 2019, coordinated the Alternative Film Master's program organized by the EICTV. His feature-length documentary project "The Star" was selected for the Residency at the Academy of Cinema in Madrid during 2021.

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Through dancing, the film shows the evil of the dictator and the horror people endure under powerful political leaders. Saddam dances, Bush dances, so what's left for the Iraqi people except to join in.

Saif Alsaegh is a United States-based filmmaker from Baghdad. Much of Saif’s work deals with the contrast between the landscape of his youth in Baghdad growing up as part of the indigenous Chaldean minority in the nineties and early 2000s, and the U.S. landscape where he currently lives. His films have screened in festivals and venues including Cinéma du Réel, Kurzfilm Hamburg, Kassel Dokfest, Aesthetica Short Film Festival, Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and The Gene Siskel Film Center. Alsaegh’s films are distributed by Video Data Bank.

Bitter with a Shy Taste of Sweetness contrasts the fragmented past of the filmmaker growing up in Baghdad with his surreal California present. Through poetic writing and jarring visuals, the film creates a calm and cruel sense of memory and landscape.

Saif Alsaegh is a United States-based filmmaker from Baghdad. Much of Saif’s work deals with the contrast between the landscape of his youth in Baghdad growing up as part of the Chaldean minority in the nineties and early 2000s, and the U.S. landscape where he currently lives. His films have screened in many festivals including Cinema du Reel, Kruzfilm Festival Hamburg, Kasseler Dokfest, Onion City Film Festival and in galleries and museums including the Wisconsin Triennial at MMoCA. He received his MFA in filmmaking from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Long still frames, text, language, and sound are weaved together to unfold the narrative of an anonymous group who fill their time by measuring distance. Innocent measurements transition into political ones, drawing to an examination of how image and sound communicate history, tragedy, and the complication of Palestinian nationalism. The work explores an ultimate disenchantment with facts when the visual fails to communicate the tragic.

Born 27 august 1983 in Kuwait. Spent early childhood in Brittany France. Educated in the US, earning BFA & MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Art & Design and was a guest student at the Malmö Art Academy, Lund University Sweden in 2004. Taught as an adjunct instructor at The University of Illinois at Chicago, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the American University in Cairo. Currently based in Beirut Lebanon as a recipient of the Fundación Marcelino Botín Visual Arts Grant 2009-2010 developing a series of new projects in photography, film, and text.

Through rituals of birth and death, the filmmaker and her family reconnect with their ancestral land in the Gobi Desert.

Udval Altangerel is a Mongolian filmmaker based between Ulaanbaatar and Los Angeles. In her work she explores the themes of personal and national histories, language, and (home)land. Her work has screened at Locarno Film Festival, Images Festival, Alchemy Film & Moving Image Festival, and Tacoma Film Festival, where she received Honorable Mention for Best Documentary Short Film. She was selected to participate in Locarno Open Doors and the Flaherty Film Seminar. Udval received her MFA in Film Directing from California Institute of the Arts.

Thistles blossom in the dead of winter, cow’s eardrums burst, poisoned milk comes out of their udders – in a remote mountain village the world is coming apart. Nature’s intangible attacks hit the Haberer’s farm at its core. In the midst of the inflammatory struggle for the interpretation of the mysterious events, the peasant family fears more and more desperately for their naked survival.

Fabian Altenried, *1987, director, producer, author, studied fine arts in Düsseldorf, philosophy in Berlin. Managing director of Schuldenberg Films. Fabian focusses on films with a political, critical & social approach that seek an unusual, artistic form.

1000 Smiles Per Hour follows a androgynous jester for one day and one night through a decaying sea side town. Drifting across the outer edges of a concrete landscape, a twilight meeting engenders a precious moment of connection for the melancholy performer, amid the coldly apathetic city limits.

Fabian Altenried (*1987) is a director, writer and producer. He studied visual art at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf and philosophy in Berlin. Since 2013 he is part of the Berlin based independent production company Schuldenberg Films. His conceptual approach stems from his engagement with post-structuralism, identity and gender theories, performativity, theories of animality, and post-ideological leftism. Fabian has been an artist in residence of Gargonza Arts in 2013, a participant of Feature Expanded 2016 and Berlinale Talents 2017. His works have been supported by the FFA, werkleitz e.V., the Arts Foundation of North Rhine Westphalia, the Stiftung Kunstfonds, the Mondriaan Fonds et al. and have been shown at the Berlinale, the Sarajevo Film Festival, in Edinburgh, Rotterdam, and many other festivals and shows globally.

Omo Valley, Ethiopia: a region where tribes villages are reduced to human zoos to entertain the honeymooners tourism industry. International corporation have land-grabbed most of the indigenous territory for massive cotton field plantations. The Omo river is been recently closed by the biggest dam of Africa, leaving two hundred thousand tribe people facing food shortages and forced resettlement. With no land where to hunt, no river where to fish , tribes lives depends on the show they are able to perform daily in front of tourists. The fate of the region is written. The one of the tribes depends on their performative skills We went there and after meeting with one tribe we asked them to imagine their future in a cinematic epic way. This was basically the script. We weren’t that surprised when they came up with a futuristic techno pop idea of themselves. We formed a tribal girl band and began filming. We recorded with the tribe the music under the shadow of one of the few trees left standing by the plantation workers. We built a bar together and threw a party, remixing our own notion of partying with their celebratory rituals. It’s been a participative creative process that generated an unique original experience.

Alterazioni Video is a group of four artists founded in Milan in 2004 and now based in New York and Berlin.The members of the group are Paololuca Barbieri Marchi, Alberto Caffarelli, Andrea Masu and Giacomo Porfiri. Their work is been exhibited internationally in museum and art institutions like: the Disobedience Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin 2005, 52nd International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale 2007, Manifesta 7 Rovereto 2008, Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of UrbanismArchitecture 2009, 21x21, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Turin 2010, Maxxi Museum, Rome 2010, Performa 09 and 11 New York, MoMA PS1 Performance Dome New York 2012, Freak Out, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York 2013, PAC Milan 2014, Hamburger Bahnhof Museum Berlin 2015 and among others. In the last five years the collective has been producing a series of 10 docu-feature films called TurboFilm, TurboFilm is a filmic system or methodology, that relate to the ongoing, generationally marked reconfiguration of experience in daily life and social relations, in labor, the economy, and politics. It aims to raise questions on problematic topics through a transversal multi-format production that can circulate through different media platforms.

This documentary addresses the work of visual artist Carlos Nogueira – a multidisciplinary artist, and one of the leading contemporary Portuguese creators. It sheds light not only on his work, but also on his close relationship with his living and working space.

With a degree in filmmaking from the Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema, Lisbon, since 1993, Lui?s Alves de Matos has collaborated in different contemporary creative projects. He then went on to make a number of documentary films about Portuguese artists. In 2001 he founded Amatar Filmes, continuing with the independent production and directing of documentaries in the field of art, as well as experimental films.

One day in a man’s life. He is looking for his wife, he is looking for some answers, he is looking for life.

Ricardo Alves Jr (1982) was born in Belo Horizonte. With his films "Material Bruto" (2006), "Convite para Jantar com o Camarada Stalin" (2007), "Permanências" (2010) e “Tremor" (2013), participated in several national and international festivals such as: Semaine de la Critique du Festival de Cannes, Festival del film Locarno, Oberhausen, Rotterdam, Havana, Bafici-Buenos Aires, Festival de Brasília do Cinema Brasileiro, Janela Internacional de Cinema do Recife, São Paulo International Short Film Festival, The Rio de Janeiro International Short Film Festival, FestCurtasBH, Vídeo Zone - International Video Art Biennial in Israel, VideoBrasil - Festival de Arte Eletrônica. Being exhibited at the Museu Centre Pompidou, in Paris, and the Museo Reina Sofia, in Madrid by the Encontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid. In 2013 had a retrospective of his films at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris (Cinéma de poche : La Collection brésilienne) and at the Cine Esquema Novo- Expandido in Porto Alegre. He won the award for Best Director of short film at the editions 40º and 46º of the Festival de Brasília do Cinema Brasileiro. As editor, edit the long “Pinta”, by Jorge Alencar, and “Avanti Popolo”, by Michael Wahrmann, debut in the Festival Internazionale del Film di Roma, where received the Award of Best Film of the Premio CinemaXXI. In the theater directed “Discurso do Coração Infartado” a solo of Silvana Stein; contemplated with the Award Miryan Muniz da Funarte, seasons performing in the cities of Belo Horizonte, São Paulo e Brasília. In 2014 co-directed with Grace Passô, “Sarabanda" performed by Mostra Bergman- Instante de Eternidade of the Fundação Clovis Salgado. Currently working on the post-production of “Elon Rabin não Acredita na Morte” contemplated by Hubert Bals Fund Award of script development; besides participating the laboratories Buenos Aires Lab (BAL), FIDlab-Plateforme Internationale de Soutien à la Coproduction and New Cinema Network – Rome Film Festival’s International Project Workshop.

From the inside the air is heavier

Ricardo Alves Jr was born in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Graduated in Film Direction at Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His first work, the short movie "Material Bruto" (Raw material), received over 10 awards at international festivals, besides being selected for the "Video Zone" at the International Video Art Biennial of Israel and VideoBrasil. "Convite para jantar com camarada Stalin" (Invitation to dinner with Comrade Stalin, 2007), Ricardo`s second work, won the award for Best Experimental Short Film at the International Short Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro; Best Short Film, Best Director and Photography at the 40th Film Festival of Brasilia, plus Special Mention "Film of Tomorrow" at the International Festival of Short Films, in Belo Horizonte. He?s participated in over 30 international film festivals such as Oberhausen, Rotterdam, Karloy Vary, Paris Cinema, Munich, and Torino Film Festival. In 2011 Ricardo released his third film entitled "Permanences", official selection at Cannes Critic?s Week.

Two elderly sisters spend their last days together. Between dreams and death, Olga and Marilu await a dinner guest.

Ricardo Alves Júnior was borned in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Graduated in Film Direction, at Universidad del Cine in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His first work, the short movie "Material Bruto" (Raw material), received over 10 awards at festivals in Bolivia, Brazil and Portugal, besides being selected to the "Video Zone" at International Video Art Biennial of Israel and VideoBrasil. "Convite para jantar com camarada Stalin" (2007), Ricardo's second work, won the award for Best Experimental Short Film (International Short Film Festival of Rio de Janeiro); best short film in 16mm, best direction and photography in the 40th Film Festival of Brasilia, and won the special mention "Film of Tomorrow" in the International Festival of Short Films, in Belo Horizonte. Participated in 20 international film festivals such as Oberhausen Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Karloy Vary Film Festival, Paris Cinema, Munich International School of Film and Torino Film Festival.

The project Treviso Centrale stems from a desire to represent and interpret the territory of Treviso in the north-east of Italy. A territory that deals with the consequences of a heavy exploitation of the land for the sake of industrialization and economic wealth but also that deals with the relationship between the human presence and the man-altered landscape. In Treviso Centrale the subjects try to engage with this wounded landscape, non-places, with the attempt to re-appropriate them. This engagement becomes forced, unnatural, because of the impossibility to relate with places that have lost their social and inner function. Treviso Centrale becomes then a journey into these contrasts, into this everyday struggle between economic and social space.

Michele Amaglio (b.1993) is an Italian photographer based in Brighton (UK) currently studying at the University of Brighton, BA (Hons) Photography at his third year. From the early workshops with the Italian photographer Marco Zanta, Michele Amaglio grew an interest on architectural photography and urban landscape starting questioning the contrasts between past and presence within the landscape. His work is focused on the relationship between human being and space, between landscape and existentialism. Across different projects his attempt to represent the social space questions the alienation from the every-day life. Among the main influences of his work, Henri Lefebvre, Albert Camus and Jean Beaudrillard.

I see everything,” she says, as if it was a curse. Brilliant sunshine, clear blue skies. The sea is calm, framed by a piece of railing. Buzzing voices. A peaceful moment if it weren’t for the fact that the sea is standing upright, vertical, like a waterfall. A rush of images, twirling, upside down, jolting. People in the boat, in the water, screams, life jackets, emergency whistles. Fluorescent orange, geometrical shapes cast by the sun. There’s no horizon anymore, no sky, no up or down, only deepness and nothing to hold on to. Even Eme’s flow comes to a halt, contracting into the brutal present. She is filming and speaking. To him, to herself, to us, perhaps. Floating legs in sweat pants, jeans, thronged together. A blouse with butterflies, it looks like their wings are flapping in the water. The snake-like belt of a coat, a crumpled-up plastic cup, a pack of cigarettes. Fuck you all! She speaks, she rages, and she films to beat being tired, being cold, the fact that help isn’t coming. To beat dying, just for something to remain.

Amel Alzakout, born 1988 in Syria, is an artist and film maker based in Leipzig. Between 2010 and 2013 she studied journalism at Cairo University, Egypt. In 2017 she participated with other artists in the video installation TRUST US in the 3rd Herbstsalon at the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin. Between 2017 and 2018 she studied art at Weißensee Art Academy in Berlin, currently she is studying media art at the Academy of visual art (HGB) in Leipzig, Germany. In 2018 she won together with her co-director Khaled Abdulwahed the Film Prize for International Cooperation Germany/Arab World by the Robert Bosch Foundation with the feature length film PURPLE SEA produced by pong film. It’s her first directing. Khaled Abdulwahed, born 1975 in Syria, is an artist, photographer and filmmaker based in Leipzig. Between 1996 and 2000 he studied Fine Arts and Graphic Design at Adham Ismail art school in Damascus, Syria and at Frederick University in Nicosia, Cyprus. Between 2002 and 2008 he exhibited his artworks in the Middle-east and Europe. Between 2011 and 2013 he directed and produced video artworks which were screened in many art spaces, festivals, universities and TV channels over the world. In 2015 he was invited to Berlinale Talents. In 2018 his short film BACKYARD celebrated its world premiere and won the CNAP (National Centre for Visual Arts) award at FID Marseille.

TRUST US 2017, Video Installation Very often journalists are contacting us to write a story about `refugees` in the context of higher education, their living in Berlin, or simply because they`re looking for some “traumatized” characters for their stories. We usually reject these requests. But this time we received an award of a multinational company and it came with a sum that we urgently needed in order to continue our programme. This time they wanted to produce a video, a one shot sequence. They seemed nice, but their task was to produce emotional images featuring the bodies of the refugee students, underscored by the voice of the white professor contextualising their movements and giving meaning to the frames. We told them this is not how it`s going to work. No one wanted to provide their ́bodies ́ to fill those frames of narration. They said: „TRUST US, it will look good“ Finally we agreed: THEY WOULD FILM US while WE WOULD FILM THEM. We decided to edit the material WE shot and combine it with texts spoken by us, relating to the week long discussions we`ve shared. The whole thing became an installation shown at 3. Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki Theater.

The *foundationClass was established at weißensee academy of art berlin in 2016. Its aim is to provide equal access to formal art education for people who have fled or migrated to Germany. It tries to create a social space where everyone’s resources are acknowledged and validated and where new formats of skill sharing and knowledge transfer can be developed. Ultimately, the *foundationClass wants to question the norms, conventions, and the habitus of art institutions and the industry as a whole. Situated within the institution but rejecting to embody it, the *foundationClass scrutinizes the art academy as a powerful site of knowledge production. Refusing to be integrated into an economy of difference, we aim to formulate strategies that position us outside of the grid of representation. Together we want to find answers to the question of how an art school of the future would look like if it genuinely recognised migration as an essential societal factor. As a collective the *foundationClass contributed TRUST US as a multichannel video installation to the 3. Berliner Herbstsalon, a festival for contemporary art by the Maxim Gorki Theater.

Just imagine: you're shopping in IKEA and suddenly you're asked to take part in a film. This is what happened to more than a hundred customers in the IKEA store in Wilrijk, Belgium, where Aminde was on location for two weeks to film "Welcome Home". In the ready-made scenes - the student's room, the rustic living room, the designer interior - the customers could improvise at will in specified situations. There was a great willingness to participate among the would-be actors. We see people sleeping, cooking, sitting down? "Welcome Home" is a compilation of humorous scenes based on the confrontation of artificiality versus authenticity, man versus the market. IKEA functions as a clearly recognizable setting for these scenes and conjures up all sorts of associations and reflections. However, Aminde doesn't make any explicit statements on consumerism and globalization. To him it's more important to simply let the people play and allow us to watch.

Ulf Aminde (was born in 1969, Germany) lives and works in Berlin as a video artist. His work was exhibited in Centre Culturel de Suisse (Paris), Friedericianum (Kassel), and Kagami (Paris), to name but a few. In 2004 he had a solo exhibition "Survival of the Fittest in Wolfsburg", and in 2006 his work was shown at the Berlin Biennale. Ulf is mostly interested in the socio-emotional mechanisms of capitalist society. Instead of merely recording, he seeks out the participation of people or groups with a social stigma, people that cannot or will not participate in our welfare society. Ulf does not condemn nor complain, but his work shows these people in such a way that our common perception of them is shattered, or at the very least becomes more nuanced.