“Industrial containers and façades, bathed in floodlights and displaying bits of writing here and there, are turned into uncanny spaces carrying enigmatic inscriptions. Embargo’s montage arranges its views in an all-encompassing play of forces that problematize movement. An image to be read in paranoia mode.” — Drehli Robnik

Johann Lurf (Vienna, Austria 1982). Studies at Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Twelve films since 2003; screenings at International Film Festival Rotterdam, International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, “Wavelengths” program at the Toronto International FIlm Festival, etc. Fourth appearance at Media City. Lives in Vienna, Austria.

Newsreels, archival footage and dramatizations commissioned by national institutions in South Korea. The primary audio is sourced from educational material produced by South Korea’s Ministry of Education and Culture to disseminate the story of Lee Seung-bok, a child killed by North Korean soldiers.

Kim Kyung-man (Seoul, Korea 1972). Studies sociology and psychology at Yonsei University. Seven films since 2002; screenings at Jeonju International Film Festival, “Wavelengths” program at the Toronto International Film Festival, Jihlava International Documentary Festival, etc. Third appearance at Media City. Lives in Seoul, Korea.

Part of Harahan’s ongoing serial project “Fucking Finland”, which traces unintended cultural links and crevices in the old Iron Curtain. Your Silent Face is shot on the docks of Rostock, Germany as a Baltic ferry leaves port for Hanko, Finland.

Seamus Harahan (London, England 1968). Studies at University of Ulster, Belfast. More than twenty video works since 2000; screenings at numerous festivals including IFF Rotterdam, Ann Arbor Film Festival; solo exhibitions at ICA (London), MukHa (Antwerp), etc. Second appearance at Media City. Lives in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Public squares in the city centres of both Guangzhou and Bangkok, as well as a heavy metal mine and rural village in the mountain valley of southern China.

Bathing in the colour spectrum, people in the squares are stained with blue rays refracted from nowhere; temporary groups on the anonymous streets, acidic bright cadmium orange lake surface… limbs grow and penetrate through the public squares, as close as flesh and blood, skin attached to the earth’s crust.

Zhou Tao (Changsha, China 1976). Studies at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Works in video and installation since 2003; exhibitions and screenings at Minsheng Art Museum (Shanghai), International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, MoMA “New Directors / New Films” at Lincoln Center (New York), etc. First appearance at Media City. Lives in Guangzhou, China.

O, Persecuted turns the act of restoring Kassem Hawal’s 1974 Palestinian militant film, Our Small Houses, into a performance possible only through film. One that involves speed, bodies, and the movement of the past into a future that collides ideology with escapism. Commissioned by the Palestine Film Foundation.

Basma Alsharif (Kuwait, 1983, to Palestinian parents). Studies at Mälmo Art Academy (Sweden) and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Eleven films and videos since 2006; screenings at numerous festivals and at Manifesta 8 (Murcia, Spain), 9th Sharjah Biennial (UAE), Wexner Center for the Arts (Columbus), etc. Third appearance at Media City. Currently lives in Los Angeles, California.

London and Warsaw, 1980. London and Leipzig, 1997. Where now? Remembering visits to Poland and East Germany many years later, Dark Light questions idealized imaginings of life in other places, times and political systems.

John Smith (London, England 1952). Studies at the Royal College of Art. 50+ films and media artworks since 1972; solo screenings at International Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Tampere Short Film Festival (Finland), etc; major group exhibitions at Venice Biennale, Tate Britain, etc. In permanent collections of Tate Gallery, Kunstmuseum Madgeburg, etc. Fourth appearance at Media City. Lives in London, England.

Oona Mosna