Opening hours Gallery: Wednesday to Sunday 12–5pm

Film Programme and Q&A: Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind

Film Programme and Q&A: Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind

Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind, In Vitro (production still) (2019) Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Lenka Rayn H.

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Join us for the Bristol premiere of In Vitro, the climax of an evening showcasing the ground-breaking film work of Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind.

This screening programme includes four films made over the last ten years, tracking the filmmakers’ evolving use of the sci-fi genre to explore issues of history, place and identity. Presented at Watershed as part of Bristol Palestine Film Festival 2019.

A Space Exodus (2009), 5 minutes 24 seconds
Directed by Larissa Sansour

A Space Exodus quirkily sets up an adapted stretch of Stanley Kubrick’s Space Odyssey in a Middle Eastern political context. The recognisable music score of the 1968 science fiction are changed to arabesque chords, matching the surreal visuals of Sansour’s film.

Nation Estate (2012), 9 minutes
Directed by Larissa Sansour

Nation Estate explores a vertical solution to Palestinian statehood. Palestinians have their state in the form of a single skyscraper: The Nation Estate. One colossal high-rise houses the entire Palestinian population – now finally living the high life.

In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain (2016), 29 minutes
Directed by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind

In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain explores the role of myth for history, fact and national identity. A narrative resistance group makes underground deposits of elaborate porcelain. Their aim is to influence history and support future claims to their vanishing lands. By implementing a myth of its own, their work becomes a historical intervention – de facto creating a nation.

In the Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain was produced by Spike Island.

In Vitro (2019), 28 minutes
Directed by Larissa Sansour and Søren Lind

Beautifully shot, this stunning film expertly explores the themes of inherited trauma, exile and collective memory. Set in the aftermath of an eco-disaster, a vast bunker under the biblical town of Bethlehem has been converted into an enormous orchard. Using heirloom seeds collected in the final days before the disaster, a group of scientists are preparing to replant the soil above. In the hospital wing of the underground compound, the orchard’s ailing founder, 70-year-old Dunia, is lying on her deathbed when 30-year-old Alia, Dunia’s successor, comes to visit her. Alia was born underground and has never seen the town she’s destined to rebuild.

In Vitro was produced by Spike Island for the Danish Pavilion at 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2019. Presented in Arabic with English subtitles,

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Larissa Sansour

Larissa Sansour was born 1973 in East Jerusalem. She received a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MA in fine art from New York University. She was also a visiting student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Sansour lives and works in London. Sansour takes an interdisciplinary approach to art, working in video, photography, installation and sculpture to create overtly political works that explore and approximate the Palestinian experience. References and details within the work borrow heavily from genre film and pop culture in combination with global politics and social issues to create intricate parallel worlds in which new value systems can be decoded.

Recent solo exhibitions including venues such as: Danish Pavilion at 58th International Art Exhibition, Biennale di Venezia; Dar El-Nimr, Beirut; Chapter Art Gallery, Cardiff; Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen; The Bluecoat Liverpool; Mosaic Rooms, London; New Art Exchange in Nottingham; Turku Art Museum in Finland; Wolverhampton Art Gallery; Kulturhuset, Stockholm; Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai; Sabrina Amrani, Madrid and DEPO in Istanbul. Her work has also featured in the biennials of Istanbul, Busan and Liverpool and screened in the official programmes of BFI London Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Locarno Film Festival amongst others. Larissa Sansour is representing Denmark in the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2019.

Søren Lind

Søren Lind is a Danish author. He writes children’s books and literary fiction. With a background in philosophy, Lind has written books on mind, language and understanding before turning to fiction. He has published a novel, collections of short stories and children’s books. In addition to his literary production, Lind is also a visual artist and writes short film scripts.

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