Film Open brings together recent work by associates, members and studio holders from five visual arts organisations across the UK: Spike Island in Bristol, Eastside Projects in Birmingham, Castlefield Gallery in Manchester, S1 Artspace in Sheffield and Glasgow’s Transmission Gallery.
Launched in May at Spike Island, 20 works were selected by Steven Cairns, ICA’s associate curator of artists’ film and moving image, from an open call to artists involved in each of the networks. These are now being shown around the country.
In August, Eastside Projects hosted a screening; this month, as part of the two-day Artists’ Moving Image Festival (AMIF) at Tramway, it’s the turn of Transmission to showcase the films to a Glasgow audience.
The tour provides an opportunity to show the works in the context of a screening programme, and for Transmission the format is proving to be a new departure that’s pushing the artist-run organisation’s committee beyond “the comfort zone of the gallery”.
“It’s very different to how we normally programme,” they explain. “We’re used to providing a white-cube space in which video works are treated as separate entities. The Film Open work is shown together on a show reel and it’s interesting to think of how the work is consumed in a cinematic space as part of an event. The audience will become invested in a different way – it will be a collective experience.”
AMIF has been co-organised this year by LUX Scotland. Put together by collectives and collaborators with an explicit link to Glasgow, the festival features an extensive programme of curated screenings, discussion groups and workshops, examining ‘the role of collective thinking and making’ in collaborative forms of production.
The festival also considers what it means for a group to constitute a single body of work, as well as how an individual can speak for a collective thought or action – important themes for Transmission and the Film Open project.
“The Film Open presents a collective of artists’ networks that maintain a strong relationship with artists. Here at Transmission we supply audio-visual equipment and editing suites, which our members can use to produce work in a discursive environment. We see this as the material and concrete aspect of being a supportive network and community.”
Part 1 of the Film Open screenings starts at 12.30pm this Saturday with work by Jack Saunders, Lewis den Hertog, Karen Cunningham, Susannah Stark, Fred Pederson, Emma Charles, Liam Allen, Matthew Parkin and Maryniak and Maclean. Part 2 is on Sunday at 3pm with work by Stuart Layton, Toby Huddleston, Charlie Tweed, Jemma Egan, Buns, Alexander Story Gordon, Jane Topping, Aideen Duran, Grace Williams, Dan Auluk, and Laura Yuile.
After Glasgow, Film Open will tour to Castlefield Gallery in October, ICA in November, and finally to S1 Artspace in December.
Film Open 2015 at Artists’ Moving Image Festival, 12-13 September 2015, Tramway, Glasgow. amif.info
