Acting from the Middle of Somewhere

Malu Blume, Edna Bonhomme & Nnenna Onuoha, Maternal Fantasies

Film, presentation

© Maternal Fantasies

Online Film Program

15.2.2021-7.3.2021

The Book of S of I (2020) by Malu Blume

Rituals (2020) by Edna Bonhomme & Nnenna Onuoha

Love and Labor. Intimacy and Isolation. Care and Survival (2020), a performance between mothers and children in a state of lockdown by and with Maternal Fantasies

 

Film

 

 

 

Film Still, The Book of S of I (2020), Malu Blume

 

 

 

Photo/Film Still, Rituals (2020), Nnenna Onuoha

 

 

 

Film Still, Love and Labor. Intimacy and Isolation. Care and Survival (2020), Maternal Fantasies

The film program Acting from the Middle of Somewhere deals with different forms of work. The first part explores and questions feminist and emancipatory notions and practices of care work – caring for oneself, for others, and for a future utopia. In the process, ever-prevailing normative concepts and myths around community, intimacy, knowledge, healing, and motherhood are questioned. The video works are complemented by short interviews with the artists, who re-situate the discourse of care in times of the pandemic.

The Book of S of I (27:41 min, 2020), Malu Blume
The Book of S of I is the first part of the fantastic sci-fi saga in three chapters about seeking and finding community. It is about the desire to belong, about the power of mutual care and the yearning for tenderness. The Book of S of I is a queer-feminist tale about the utopian power of friendship, self-love and the pleasure of the body. Creatures born from Hopeless is Malu Blume‘s first experimental short-film and has been created in a close collaboration with the Vienna-based film collective HEKATE and a with the support of the sponsorship award of the Arthur-Boskamp-Foundation.

Link to film

More info & 3 questions to the filmmaker…

Rituals (16:37 min, 2020), Edna Bonhomme and Nnenna Onuoha
Chronicling the care practices of three Black Berliners—Caritia, “a BDSM practitioner, domina and sex worker,” Lee a “gender-terrorist, yoga instructor” and Goitseone, “a pessimistic witch,” rituals consists of a twenty-minute documentary video and a twelve-piece photo-series. In the video, describing their respective experiences as Black bodies in the German health care system, Lee, Caritia, and Goitseone also demonstrate some of the ways in which they find healing for themselves and for others outside.

Link to film

More info & 3 questions to the filmmakers…

Love and Labor. Intimacy and Isolation. Care and Survival (22:50 min, 2020), Maternal Fantasies
Who cares for whom and what are the consequences? The feminist art collective Maternal Fantasies lets viewers peak into their homes, where artistic production exists alongside domestic tasks and childcare. Household items become toys. Kitchens become backdrops. Care work and parenting have historically been marked by gender-based inequalities, yet the current conditions of social distancing have acutely magnified these  injustices.  Against this backdrop, the performance seeks to  understand “mothering” not as a physical and fixed category or identity, but instead as dedicated time, attention, nurturance, protection and an interrupted state of mind.

Link to film

More info & 3 questions to the filmmakers…

 

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