The Power and Limitations of the Archive: Panel Discussion + Q&A
BLOOMSBURY THEATRE
THURSDAY 25TH MAY
18:00 – 19:00
Book tickets
Archives are vital in documenting and preserving our collective stories while shaping our understanding of history. How can we effectively incorporate archival material into our filmmaking? And what are the practical steps filmmakers must undertake to secure the footage in the first place?
Join us in a panel to discuss both the political and the practical nuances of working with archives with filmmakers who have succesfully introduced archival footage in their films. We will explore the multifaceted nature of archives as manifestations of care, defiance, resistance to cultural erasure, and decolonial practice, while also acknowledging their potential to create hierarchies and dynamics of exclusion.
Hussina Raja
Hussina Raja is a British-Kashmiri multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker. Her work explores discources surrounding notions of identity, heritage, belonging and culture. She works with film, photography, installation, writing and performance.
Her recent work reflects the impact of diaspora migration, bi-cultural-identity politics and the emergence of subcultures in shaping politics, popular culture and social constructs to-date. She often uses her personal experiences and encounters as a starting point for creating work.
Her films were screened at Focal International Awards (winner), Whitechapel Gallery, London Short Film Festival, Aesthetica Festival, BFI London Film festival, and many more, and she was a selected artist for Berlinale Talents in 2022.
Miranda Pennell
Miranda Pennell’s films rework photographic materials from imperial archives as a starting point for reflecting on Britain’s colonial legacies. Her award-winning work has screened at major international film festivals that include London, Rotterdam, Berlin, New York, and Vienna.
This year screenings and exhibitions include two one-person programmes 'Strange Objects' at Close-Up Film Centre, London, and the group exhibition and one-person cinema screening Evil Eye: the parallel histories of ballistics and optics (January-June 2023) at Tabakalera Centre for Contemporary Culture, San Sebastian.
Pennell has an MA in Visual Anthropology at Goldsmith’s College, and a PhD from the Centre for Research in Education in Arts and Media at University of Westminster. She leads the Politics and Poetics of Archival Filmmaking course for Open City Documentary Festival. She is currently artist in residence at the School of Law at Birkbeck College."
The Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AH