Imaginary Escape

3 Dec 2024-15 Jan 2025

Overview

We are excited to present an online exhibition ‘Imaginary Escape’ from 3 December 2024 to 15 January 2025. 

Register here to access the online exhibition and receive timely updates as the exhibition evolves. 

This exhibition brings together four films by artists whose works recently joined the LUX Collection. As we became immersed in these artists' practices, we were drawn to the ways each grapples with the fractured worlds in the wake of colonialism and state violence, where one must navigate between loss and liberation.

For this programme, we selected early and recent works from these artists that challenge and reframe the narratives of these worlds through unique moving image practices. The title ‘Imaginary Escape’ takes inspiration from a line in Suneil Sanzgiri’s film ‘At Home but Not at Home’, a reflection on the liberating power of imagination amid histories of displacement and oppression.

Some works in the programme emphasise the disruptions and gaps as sites of resistance. In ‘rial & tERROR’, Gelare Khoshgozaran weaves together fragments of pre-revolutionary Iranian media, contraband pop music and home video, inviting us to consider how imperial forces shape even our most intimate perceptions of pleasure and longing. Suneil Sanzgiri’s ‘At Home but Not at Home’ spans distances of memory, technology and liberation movements to revisit his father’s story, layering disparate media to bridge personal and political histories.

Other films explore stories of survival and defiance within oppressive landscapes. ‘Kings of the Sky’ by Deborah Stratman, follows Uyghur tightrope artist Adil Hoxur and his troupe across Xinjiang’s desert, balancing cultural tradition with the weight of political complexity. Michelle Williams Gamaker’s ‘The Silver Wave’ reimagines the journey of Ada Blackjack, an Iñupiat woman and sole survivor of a colonial Arctic expedition, through the voices of indigenous memory and objects drawn from archive.

Unfolding over seven weeks, the films in this programme offer a space to reflect on the imaginative, often unseen acts of resistance and survival. 

Programme:

‘At Home But Not at Home’ (2019) by Suneil Sanzgiri

‘rial & tERROR’ (2011) by Gelare Khoshgozaran

‘Kings Of The Sky’ (2004) by Deborah Stratman

‘The Silver Wave’ (2020) by Michelle Williams Gamaker

Accessibility Information

The films in this programme include captions. 

If you have any access needs to experience our online exhibition, please email us at events[at]lux.org.uk or call us at  +44(0)20 3141 2960.

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