A Language of Bodies, Vector Fest Curatorial Statement
a language of bodies is a language born to us. and yet, as we move about the world we lose the ability to speak in tongues of water and wind. instead, we become preoccupied with the governable, the classified, and the calculable. what would become of us if we learned, once more, to speak the language of life? a language of bodies brings together artists transcending sealed structures and exploding the classification systems which govern “bodies”. by engaging with somatic and ethereal forms, these artists are celebrating the undefined and uncontrollable. in doing so, they are reshaping the words used to separate and categorize and building a new language, one which is inside and outside, both and neither, nothing and everything, all at once.
in xīn nī 廖芯妮 (understanding you), Jasmine Liaw traces an embodied history of her own Hakka identity through a technological visualization of migration, heritage, and diasporic identity. the avatar produced becomes a body of knowledge unto itself, one which parallels Liaw’s own body and, as such, is both immaterial and corporeal.
in The Sea in the River, Shahana Rajani and Jeanne Penjan Lassus unearth the path between two water shrines, once connected by the Indus River. as the Indus River has been cut and canalized, it has left behind traces of its presence. though small shrines are the only remnants, this film honours what remains of an ancient form, uncovering the metaphysical carvings left behind by the water, on the land and on the bodies of those who were touched by it.
The Magical Quality of Armpits celebrates the under-appreciated aspects of the human form. drawing parallels between the hills and valleys of armpits and those of the mountains, Shubhi Sahni provides a simple yet profound reading of the body in relation to the land, reminding us that each river, leaf, and mountain is as much a part of nature as it is a part of us.
throughout Solar, a shifting atmosphere takes the viewer between indoor and outdoor environments, reminiscent of a dream. existing as a metaphor for the folk tale of the run remaining motionless at dusk, Jessica Arsenault’s film animates a moment in time when the natural rhythms of the earth pause. as if breaking from a mould, time stops, inside and outside become one, and the viewer enters a moment outside of the limits of time and space.
documenting a durational ritual performed by kelechi agwuncha, tether features an object reminiscent of a tether ball which, through movement, transforms the artist into an Ojiọnu Igbo-Nigerian masquerade figure. agwuncha’s film celebrates the possibility of spiritual transcendence of constraining forms through gesture.
throughout a language of bodies, filmmakers draw on their own identities and experiences to reflect on the restraints, both personal and societal, placed upon bodies. whether their film explores bodies of water, the human body, or bodies of knowledge, the artists ask us to consider the purpose of the classification systems in which we are wholly immersed. each artist rewrites the ‘rules’ of their existence to point toward new ways of being. they accept the unnamable and unruly and celebrate the ways bodies leak out of the borders in which we outline them. they are creating a language of bodies, a language borne of interconnectivity.