The Spirit Has Eyes Toward Longing: Short Films

This program is in conjunction with the exhibition The Spirit Has Eyes Toward Longing, currently on show at Artspeak, Vancouver. The Spirit Has Eyes Toward Longing creatively envisions metaphysical philosophies through contemporary art. As part of her residency at Artspeak, guest curator Fegor Obuwoma examines the ways in which Afro-diasporic futurisms and Afro-cosmologies form a framework to speculate a spiritual aesthetic, embodying narratives of otherworldly realms, longing, collective/familial memory, ritual, and spirit presence. The films in this program address radical futurity and corporeality in an effort to think through the realities of the Black diaspora in the unfathomable aftermath of disaster.

The four films in this short program come from across the Afro-diaspora, inquiring into alternate realities and filmic history. Complicating time, the films in this program embrace an in-between that is potent with meaning. Please join us for this program if you enjoy Afro-futurism, surrealism and narratives that carry you across time and space.

• The Deliverance of Comfort dir. Zina Saro-Wiwa (2010) 7min
• Black Lady Goddess dir. Chelsea Odufu (2019) 25min
• Ele of the dark dir. Yace Sula (2021) 13min
• Brave dir. Wilmarc Val (2021) 25min

Curated by Fegor Obuwoma:

Ogheneofegor Obuwoma (she/they) is a Nigerian artist, writer, and arts worker based in Vancouver on the unceded Coast Salish lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬNations. Obuwoma’s lens-based practice is grounded in traditions of care and reimagination. Utilizing concepts of Afro-diasporic futurism, their work emerges from an investigation of questions of the body and the spiritual as they relate to a nuanced state of contemporary Nigerian society and culture. Obuwoma has shown work at galleries and film festivals, and their writing has been published on Akimbo. She graduated from Simon Fraser University with a BFA in Film and Communications and is currently pursuing an independent curatorial practice.

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