LADA Screens: Keith Khan – Online Screening
- Date
- Monday 08 Jun 2020 - Sunday 19 Jul 2020
- Venue
Online
- Price
- Free
LADA is delighted to mark the premiere of Z, a new performance film by Keith Khan, with this online screening.
This screening marks the launch of LADA’s online Summer Programme – a series of weekly offerings of screenings, talks, presentations and ‘live’ online events. The film will be available online for the duration of the Programme – from Monday 8 June to Sunday 19 July. The screening is presented alongside a filmed conversation with Khan.
In lieu of the usual LADA Screens live launch event, Joseph Morgan Schofield (LADA) caught up with Keith remotely for a discussion considering ideas of faith, devotion, eroticism and ecstasy in relation to Z.
About Z
Z is a new performance film by Keith Khan. Echoing the still sparseness to be found in the work of the 17th century Spanish painter Franciscó de Zubarán, the film is inspired by the movements of penitence and suffering found in the devotional rituals of Spanish catholicism. Castigation is a common sight – men whip themselves in public, carry heavy saint statues on floats with bare feet in an ostentatious show of public suffering, visibly displaying their faith and devotion before others. Conversely, women suffer in silence and stillness at home. Here, performing a taconeo (the flamenco footwork), the female figure experiences a moment of release. Limited by the narrow range of expression and movement found in devotional religious sculpture, the performers Carolina Junco and Carlos Alma, work towards an experience of religious ecstasy.
Z can be seen as a counter point to a work Khan made in 1986 with Dianne Esguerra entitled Images from Purdah, and based on the Koran and Othello.
'Z', Keith Khan, 2020. Still from video. LADA Screens, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Biography
Keith Khan works with performance, film, drawing and textiles. Born in London, of Indo-Caribbean heritage, he interrogates the layers of inherited ethnic and cultural identities and the contemporary phenomenon of cultural confusion. His works are highly personal, but often presented in different locations and for an audience as diverse as himself.
Khan’s current practice draws on experiences of displacement – he has created a series of animations, large embroideries, drawings and made a series of films in China and India featuring artists and cultural commentators talking about their neighbours.
In 2020 the BFI are re-releasing some early video work made by Khan and moti roti, a company he founded in the 90s.
About LADA Screens
LADA Screens is a series of free, online screenings of seminal performance documentation, works to camera, short films/video and archival footage. It is part of Live Online, LADA’s dedicated space where you can watch short videos and films drawn from LADA’s Study Room or generated through our programmes and initiatives.
Each screening will be available to view for a limited time only, and will be launched with a live event at our space in Bethnal Green, London.
LADA Screens is curated by the Live Art Development Agency (LADA). LADA is a ‘Centre for Live Art’: a knowledge centre, a production centre for programmes and publications, a research centre setting artists and ideas in motion, and an online centre for digital experimentation, representation and dissemination.
LADA's Summer Programme
Between Monday 8 June and Sunday 19 July, LADA will present an online Summer Programme – weekly offerings of screenings, talks, presentations and ‘live’ online events that draw upon the incredible resources and resourcefulness of the artists and organisations who work with, around, and for Live Art. This programme will include contributions by LADA’s artist Patrons, a selection of LADA Screens Greatest Hits and the presentations of Once More with Feeling – a series of instruction and reenactment pieces commissioned by LADA during the Covid-19 pandemic. We are currently seeking proposals for folx to hold stalls as part of the Fete, and for Once More With Feeling.
During these times we strive to remain a resource for our community: responding to the pandemic, and the associated states of isolation, lockdown and distancing, LADA has compiled this ongoing list of support and resources for artists and arts workers, have sought proposals for two online, collaborative home-based residencies, and begun a series of ‘Lockdown Lists‘ which draw attention to the ways in which contemporary and historic Live Art practices speak to the issues and conditions of lockdown.
Check out LADA’s Summer Programme
'Z', Keith Khan, 2020. Still from video. LADA Screens, 2020. Image courtesy of the artist.
Banner image credit:
Still from Z by Keith Khan. Image courtesy of the artist.
Part of LADA's Summer Programme 2020
A season of weekly offerings of screenings, talks, presentations and ‘live’ online events.
LADA’s Summer Programme 2020
A season of weekly offerings of screenings, talks, presentations and ‘live’ online events.
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