New episodes of the e-flux podcast are live! Recent conversations feature Ahmed El Maanouni, Omar Berrada, Sosena Solomon, Mpho Matsipa, Natacha Nsabimana, Ben Eastham, Alice Wang, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Hallie Ayres, Thotti, Lucile Desamory, Heidi Lau, Ciarán Finlayson, Andreas Petrossiants, Amelia Umuhire, Keli Safia Maksud, Christian Nyampeta, Saodat Ismailova, and Tamara Khasanova. The full archive is searchable by contributor and subject here.
Series: African Film Institute
Three episodes recorded prior to screenings at e-flux Screening Room within the context of the African Film Institute, a project convened by Christian Nyampeta that aims to create a home and a place of intimacy with African cinema in New York.
Omar Berrada talks to Ahmed El Maanouni preceededing a screening of Al Hal [Trances] (1981). While presenting itself as a music documentary on the iconic band Nass El Ghiwane, it is also a film about friendship and collaboration, archival memory, the anti-colonial imagination, and working-class life in Casablanca.
Sosena Solomon, Mpho Matsipa, and Natacha Nsabimana have a discussion before screening Sosena Solomon’s documentary Merkato (2013). Merkato traces the lives of four people as they navigate the demands of life and work in one of the biggest markets in Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Filmed on location in Merkato, before a radical architectural transformation, Solomon’s documentary invites us to ask expansive questions about space, architecture, transition, and preservation.
Amelia Umuhire, Natacha Nsabimana, Christian Nyampeta, and Keli Safia Maksud discuss Umuhire’s experimental short film Mugabo (2016) and her award-winning radio documentary Innocent (2020). Umuhire’s work tells stories centered on the geography of Rwanda while also moving across time, space, and tongues.
Series: Cosmos Cinema conversations
Produced in conjunction with the 14th Shanghai Biennale, Cosmos Cinema, at the Power Station of Art (November 2023–March 2024), curated by Anton Vidokle, Zairong Xiang, Hallie Ayres, Lukas Brasiskis, and Ben Eastham.
Over the course of five episodes, Ben Eastham and Hallie Ayres alternately host brief conversations with artists featured in the Shanghai Biennale, including Alice Wang, Nolan Oswald Dennis, Thotti, Lucile Desamory, and Heidi Lau. Each episode includes an in-depth discussion of works on display in the exhibition, as well as the broader themes reflected in Cosmos Cinema.
Ciarán Finlayson on Perpetual Slavery
Andreas Petrossiants talks to author Ciarán Finlayson about his book, Perpetual Slavery, published by Floating Opera Press in 2023. In Perpetual Slavery, Ciarán Finlayson investigates the relationship of art to freedom in the work of Cameron Rowland and Ralph Lemon, who both utilize imagery of labor haunted and structured by the historical experience of slavery. Finlayson suggests that these two artists’ work overcomes the dichotomy between the recording of history and its interpretation by making both the object of artistic experience, thereby providing a space to grasp the continuing effects of slavery.
Saodat Ismailova: To Share a Dream With a River
Tamara Khasanova and Hallie Ayres speak with artist Saodat Ismailova following To Share a Dream With a River, a screening of three films at e-flux. Drawing on the cultural identities and vernacular histories of Central Asia, Saodat Ismailova’s films meditate on memory, spirituality, immortality, and extinction. Frequently based around folk stories in which women are the lead protagonists, and exploring systems of knowledge suppressed by globalized modernity, these consciousness expanding works hover between visible and invisible worlds.
The e-flux podcast features conversations with some of the most engaged artists and thinkers working today. Produced by Erin Ferro-Murray and Keli Safia Maksud, it is available for subscription on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud.