Collected Histories: Personal Archives and Documentation
Film Screenings | Talks |Workshops
Collected Histories: Personal Archives and Documentation, is a project co-founded by Hind Mezaina and Jasmine Soliman, archivist and founder of RepCinema. It is born out of Mezaina's art practice and personal archiving and Soliman's work in archival collections management, and inspired by self-published Internet Archive projects.
We are joined by archivist Jon Burr, whose personal research is around digitization of, and access to, family archives.
Through public film screenings, talks and workshops, its aim is to foster discussion on personal documentation and archiving, with an ultimate goal of inspiring and supporting individuals to become ‘citizen archivists’ by cataloguing, and exploring ways to self-publish and preserve personal collections, and to have discussions about the complexities of communities and belonging.
FIRST EVENT:
Sunday, May 4 at 421 Arts Campus, Abu Dhabi
Film Screening
Four short films about archives, memories, and identity followed by a short discussion between Hind Mezaina, Jasmine Soliman with audience participation.
Don’t Get Too Comfortable (Shaima Al Tamimi, 2021, 9 min)
Where Am I From? (Nouf Aljowaysir, 2022, 13 min)
Still Processing (Sophy Romvari, 2020, 17 min)
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (Theo Panagopoulos, 2024, 17 min)
Workshop
Attendees signing up to stay for the workshop will be required to bring at least one item from their personal archive, it could be family photos, letters, diaries, heirlooms.
Highlights and photos from the event on May 4
Don't Get Too Comfortable (Shaima Al Tamimi, 2021, 9 min) -- Questioning the continuous pattern of movement amongst Yemenis in diaspora, the filmmaker fuses archival photographs and sourced footage, calling attention to the collective feeling of statelessness and sense of being felt by migrants.
Where Am I From? (Nouf Aljowaysir, 2022, 13 min) -- The filmmaker explores her identity by tracing her childhood and family memories by constructing her genealogical journey using two different voices, her own and an AI ‘narrator’, revealing stereotypes and biases derived from its algorithmic composition.
Still Processing (Sophy Romvari, 2020, 17 min) -- A box of stunning family photos unseen for decades awakens lost memories as they are viewed for the first time on camera.
The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing (Theo Panagopoulos, 2024, 17 min) -- When a filmmaker of Palestinian descent based in Scotland unearths a rarely-seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wildflowers, he decides to reclaim the footage. The film questions the role of image-making as a tool of both testimony and violence when connected to entanglements between people and the land.
SECOND EVENT:
Sunday, July 27 at 421 Arts Campus, Abu Dhabi
Film Screening
Rankin Street, 1953 (Naeem Mohaieman, 2013, 8 min)
At Home But Not At Home (Suneil Sanzgiri, 20219, 11 min)
Between Delicate and Violent (Şirin Bahar Demirel, 2023, 15 min)
My Father (Pegah Ahangarani, 2023, 19 min)
Workshop
As we did in our first workshop, we will encourage participants to present a personal object or heirloom this time considering objects in relation to one-another. How an object may be described differently or take on another meaning when placed alongside others and how ‘collections’ can be built and understood.
We will explore moving from personal frameworks to archival description and what categories our objects may be placed within, with an eye toward archival principles of description thus exploring ways to arrange, describe, and preserve personal archives for both ancestral and community posterity.
Rankin Street, 1953 (Naeem Mohaieman, 2013, 8 min)
At Home But Not At Home (Suneil Sanzgiri, 20219, 11 min)
Between Delicate and Violent (Şirin Bahar Demirel, 2023, 15 min)
My Father (Pegah Ahangarani, 2023, 19 min)