2021: Beautiful Life

Video Essay

In this episode of our 2021 video series, Taiwanese multimedia artist Monofee uses the medium of silent cinema to present a narrative of hope, conflict, and uncertainty over the turn of the new year.

The short film was set in the artists home of Banqiao 板橋, New Taipei, Taiwan. The characters of Monofee and Olammy struggle under the shadow of ominous futures, threatening family, and security and opening into an unknown 2021.

Credits

Story, Direction, Illustrations: Monofee
Editting, FX: awe IX
Camera: 安E堂
Music: Monofee
Starring: Monofee, Olammy, Tommy?

awe IX is a visual artist who has worked alongside various musicians and runs the collective Quantum Natives. They have exhibited and performed worldwide, including at ISSUE Project Rooms New York, ICA London, and KW Institute Berlin, as well as across Europe and East Asia. Follow Awe IX on Tumblr.

For the 2021 edition of the Norient Film Festival NFF, Norient commissioned ten artists around the world to work on short artistic media pieces. They were asked to reflect on their personal thoughts of «2021». How do they see and describe the world they live in? How do they see the present and the future? What sounds, clips, media pieces, and thoughts give hope for «2021» and for the future? What makes them angry, hopeful, depressed, suicidal, or happy?

Biography

Monofee is a multimedia artist. She produces work of dreamy melancholy cut through with a heartbreaking innocence. Their debut EP «Forest of Feelings» was released in February 2019 on Quantum Natives, and they have since contributed to compilations from Edited Arts and Eternal Dragonz. Last year they composed the original soundtrack to Dafa Metti, a documentary by Tal Amiran following the struggle of Senegalese migrants in Paris. Follow her on Instagram, and SoundCloud.

Published on February 04, 2021

Last updated on April 10, 2024

Topic

Belonging

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Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

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2021: Dejame Vivir un Día

Video Essay

by Lechuga Zafiro,

Jusomor

This episode of our 2021 video series by visual artist Jusomor and sound artist Lechuga Zafiro is deeply inspired by the re-encounter with our elders during the current times of uncertainty and confusion.

This video will be screened at Rewire Festival 2021. The video has thus been taken down temporarily and will be accessible on this page after the festival again.

Dejame vivir un día is a collaborative audiovisual artwork by visual artist Jusomor (Argentina) and sound artist Lechuga Zafiro (Uruguay). The Río de la Plata region is heavily striked by unemployment, a health and an economic crisis caused by the pandemic, forcing us to go back to our families house after years of economic independence. Dejame vivir un día is deeply inspired by the re-encounter with our elders: the culture they consume, their bodies, their homes, the memories of our childhood. It’s the rummage of our past and a new intergenerational tie that stimulated us to choose the images and sounds we chose to poetically represent the present we find ourselves in.

The piece begins by citing an anonymous poem from the XV century, Romancero del enamorado y la muerte: «La muerte me anda buscando (death is looking for me).» An older generation seems most threatened by COVID-19, as the virus targets them. Sounds and images rapidly succumb into chaos, as we convey the feeling of uncertainty and confusion that has prevailed through 2020 and the start of 2021.

Dejame vivir un día is about introspection, regression, slowness, suffocation, but also about finding our own artistic voice and expanding the notion of «individuation» through reconnection with a past self.

Leche feat. MC Nick by Lechuga Zafiro

For the 2021 edition of the Norient Film Festival NFF, Norient commissioned ten artists around the world to work on short artistic media pieces. They were asked to reflect on their personal thoughts of «2021». How do they see and describe the world they live in? How do they see the present and the future? What sounds, clips, media pieces, and thoughts give hope for «2021» and for the future? What makes them angry, hopeful, depressed, suicidal, or happy?

Biography

Lechuga Zafiro a.k.a. Pablo de Vargas is an Uruguayan DJ and producer. Straddling the line between the exploratory nature of club culture and the poetics of sound design, he seeks to express the nuances of Latin American experience through his music. Follow him on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, Facebook, X, Instagram, and https://open.spotify.com/intl-it/artist/59CKhQjneZAPQKYcylrsVd?autoplay=true” target="_blank">Spotify.

Biography

Jusomor crosses the borders between the field of design and the field of contemporary art, in search of a hybrid language in constant development centered on their affinities and on the tension in their epistemological character. Across different media (photoshop crafts, objects, performance and video) Jusomor works around the constant idea of recovering a lost balance through friction, while focusing on a community corpus. Follow him on Instagram, and on his Website.

Published on February 04, 2021

Last updated on April 10, 2024

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Body

Community

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Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

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2021: Future Tense

Video Essay

by Poetra Asantewa,

Henry Desouza Nelson

In this episode of our 2021 video series, poet, writer, and designer Poetra Asantewa ponders over the future of the city of Accra, what it ought to look like, where it ought to be, and who it should aim to be.

Faith and Fury EP by Poetra Asantewa

For the 2021 edition of the Norient Film Festival NFF, Norient commissioned ten artists around the world to work on short artistic media pieces. They were asked to reflect on their personal thoughts of «2021». How do they see and describe the world they live in? How do they see the present and the future? What sounds, clips, media pieces, and thoughts give hope for «2021» and for the future? What makes them angry, hopeful, depressed, suicidal, or happy?

Biography

Poetra Asantewa is a Ghanaian poet and writer. Her work, both on the page and on the stage, engages issues of feminism, inequality, and mental health in her community. Her chapbook «You Too Will Know Me» is part of the New Generation African Poetry Chapbook set, and her debut poetry book will be published by Eccobooks in 2021. She is the founder of Tampered Pressand co-founder of Black Girls Glow. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook, X, Youtube, Spotify, SoundCloud, or on her Website.

Biography

Henry Desouza Nelson is a Ghanaian creator based primarily in Accra. He is well-versed in film, photography, graphic design, and sound. He has an eye for good art and has worked with organizations like GGBL, Swiss Embassy, UNICEF, T TEL, ARAAP, Uber Ghana, Afrochella and many others. Follow him on Instagram, LinkedIn, or on his Website.

Published on February 02, 2021

Last updated on April 10, 2024

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City

Place

Protest

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Norient Film Festival NFF 10 (2021)

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