As part of the symposium Cultivating Subversion Through Feminist Contemporary Art Collecting, this screening brings together two films by London-based artist and filmmaker Sweatmother, alongside the short film, maud., created by the Edinburgh-based artist-led organisation Rhubaba Gallery and Studios. The evening includes a conversation with Sweatmother and Chizu Anucha, focusing on the particularities of queer and feminist moving image collecting practices, and how contemporary filmmakers sit within and outside of existing collecting infrastructures and archives.

Screening programme:

Femme Cowboy by Sweatmother, digital - green screen/found footage/filmed/edited (2018 - 2022) | 12 min

Untitled by Sweatmother, found footage/filmed/synthesized and edited (2022) | 9 min

maud. by Rhubaba Gallery and Studios - Director: Natasha Thembiso Ruwona; Visual Director: Xavier LaCroix; Executive Producer: Tomiwa Folorunso; Assistant Producers: Chizu Anucha and Khadea Santi (2022) | 15 min

Biographies:

Sweatmother (he/they) is an artist and filmmaker based in London. Their moving image work blends performance, self-recorded documentation, internet and archival footage in order to explore and make visible queer lived experiences. Experimental techniques are often incorporated throughout his work such as the triple baked method, an original image making technique using a video synthesizer. Sweatmother seeks to create art for their community to share, learn from and find solace in sensitive depictions of their shared raw realities and obscured histories. They continue to develop their visual art practice alongside their collaborations and lived experiences, proposing new ways the world can interact with otherness. Sweat is the founder of Otherness Archive, a digital archive documenting queer films and its pioneers, co-organiser for London Trans Pride and artist resident for queer rave, INFERNO.

Chimzuruoke (Chizu) Anucha (he/him/they/them) is a Scottish afrodiasporic artist of Igbo Nigerian heritage, currently based in Glasgow and working across sound and moving image. His practice is multi-disciplinary and collaborative, meeting at the intersection of music composition, video and site-responsive performance. Exhibitions of his moving image work and music performance have been presented at V&A Dundee (2021); Edinburgh Art Festival (2021); Tramway, Glasgow (2020); The Royal Glasgow Institute, Glasgow (2020); McLellan Galleries, Glasgow (2019). He was co-producer and sound designer on the short film maud. (2022), and was a monthly contributor to Clyde Built Radio (2021-22).

•••

The screening is part of Cultivating Subversion Through Feminist Contemporary Art Collecting, a one-day convening of scholars, art professionals, and PhD researchers exploring feminist art collecting practices. This event examines the material and ideological conditions necessary for feminist collections to exist and explores possible strategies for tackling the biases and violence inherent in existing collections and collecting frameworks.

The symposium is organised by researchers from the universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews, and Strathclyde: Camila Cavalcante Pereira, Lexington Davis, Fabiola Fiocco, Lucy Howie, Dr Kirsten Lloyd, Dr Catherine Spencer, and Francesca Vale.

The screening and symposium have been generously supported by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, the St Andrews Centre for Contemporary Art, the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews, the Global Contemporary Research Group at Edinburgh College of Art, and the University of Edinburgh.