This Friday evening, Struts Gallery is hosting a free screening of films from six different artists from around the world, thanks to the South Asian Visual Arts Centre, or SAVAC.
SAVAC is a longstanding artist-run-centre that specializes in partnering with local centres all over the world to showcase culturally diverse artists. As a nomadic gallery, SAVAC brings its exhibitions on tour, and cultivates partnerships along the way.
CHMA sat down with SAVAC staffer Abedar Kamgari this week outside the sunny yellow walls of Struts Gallery on Lorne Street, to find out more:
This is Kamgari’s second visit to Sackville, having previously brought her own art practice to town as a Struts artist-in-residence in 2022. “Some folks in the community might remember helping me make beads,” says Kamgari. “It was a lovely time.”
The Friday evening screening is called MONITOR 15: Clearings in the Fog, part of a series featuring experimental film and video. “Experimental Film is it’s a hard thing to define,” says Kamgari. “It’s a way for the filmmakers to respond to the environments around them, to go and explore.”
The films featured in MONITOR are more open-ended and exploratory than narrative films, says Kamgari. “It almost feels like this little bubble between the world of commercial film and the world of abstract and conceptual art. It kind of moves between those worlds.”
The six films in ‘Clearings in the Fog’ are created by artists with “connections to India, Indonesia, Egypt, Palestine, Iran, and of course, Canada,” says Kamgari. The films touch on themes including climate change, patriarchy, feminism, and the realities of living in lockdown in a pandemic. The series will bring viewers to “a reflective space and meditative space,” says Kamgari.
“One of the things that I really love about this program is the ways in which these artists are using sound,” she says. “There’s some really beautiful audio explorations happening, but also really gorgeous imagery.”
Kamgari and other SAVAC staff are touring with the films and will be on hand Friday night to discuss the works. “We’re really excited to talk to people and have some conversations around this beautiful program,” says Kamgari.
MONITOR 15: Clearings in the Fog screens at Struts on Friday, June 23, with food and socializing outside starting at 7pm, and the screening inside at 8pm. Admission is free.
