2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the London Film-makers’ Co-operative (LFMC), a ground-breaking organisation that pioneered a tradition for the production, distribution, and exhibition of artists’ moving image in the United Kingdom. To mark this anniversary Tate Britain and LUX present a monthly series of screenings and artists’ conversations revisiting the legacy of the London Film-makers’ Co-op and its significance today.
Alia Syed (b.1964) made her early 16mm films at the London Film-makers Co-operative in the mid 1980s, using the Co-op’s optical printer as a means to explore issues of identity and representation. Her work proposes an ongoing investigation of the nature and role of language in intercultural communication, with a focus on borders and boundaries, translation and the trans-cultured self. Her films draw from personal and historical realities in order to address the subjective relationship to gender, location, diaspora and colonial memory.
Kathryn Elkin (b. 1983) is a former LUX Associate Artist who works with performance, video and writing. Like Syed, Elkin’s practice is concerned with personal methods of translation, transcription and representation, offering a comparison of the way in which we experience art to the ways and means it is understood culturally. Elkin and Syed were both part of a 6 month artist’s residency at BBC Scotland, producing Michael’s Theme and Points of Departure respectively.
Kathryn Elkin (b. 1983) is a former LUX Associate Artist who works with performance, video and writing. Like Syed, Elkin’s practice is concerned with personal methods of translation, transcription and representation, offering a comparison of the way in which we experience art to the ways and means it is understood culturally. Elkin and Syed were both part of a 6 month artist’s residency at BBC Scotland, producing Michael’s Theme and Points of Departure respectively.
A selection of works by Alia Syed and Kathryn Elkin will be screened, followed by a conversation between the artists.
Programme
Michael’s Theme, Kathryn Elkin, UK, 2014, 7mins
Points of Departure, Alia Syed, UK, 2014, 16mins
Eating Grass, Alia Syed, UK, 2003, 23mins
Why La Bamba, Kathryn Elkin, UK, 2015