Opening: Saturday 18 August, 2pm–4pm
if you can’t share no one gets any is an exhibition by Cinenova, a volunteer run feminist film and video distributor based at LUX, Waterlow Park. Cinenova has invited artist Carolyn Lazard and the worker collective Collective Text to share the space of this exhibition to present work which addresses some of the barriers to the access of film and video in its production, distribution and exhibition.
Carolyn Lazard’s video A Recipe for Disaster (2017, USA, 27 mins) uses the first programme shown with captions on US television in 1972, a cookery show, The French Chef, to compose a wider study on the terms of media accessibility. The exhibition’s title “if you can’t share no one gets any” is a line taken from the video’s compelling spoken/written manifesto-like text that, along with deadpan audio description, counter-narrates the original broadcast and casts a profound critique of inclusion as add-on or afterthought.
Alongside Lazard’s video installation, Cinenova has invited Collective Text, a Glasgow-based worker collective who share skills and expertise to deliver intersectional access projects, specialising in creative Captioning and Audio Description for art and experimental film, to begin a longer-term access project for the titles within the Cinenova collection. Collective Text work in consultation with D/deaf & Hard of Hearing, Blind & Visually Impaired and Disabled artists and audiences.
Collective Text will work with the following three films from the Cinenova Collection, that speak to issues around access, disability justice, and/or translation: All In Your Head by Jo Pearson, Double the Trouble, Twice the Fun by Pratibha Parmar (made with UK disability arts communities), and On The Threshold of Liberty by Heidi Tikka. Collective Text members will provide reflections and considerations specific to each film, highlighting opportunities, absences and challenges in offering access to these artist moving image works. In doing so, they hope to start conversations about what access looks like for Cinenova’s collection of films, the working group, and their various communities and audiences.
Please join us for a Breakfast Opening on Wednesday 15th August at LUX, 9am–10.30am, for a special preview of the exhibition. All welcome.
Pratibha Parmar
Double The Trouble, Twice The Fun | 1992
UK, 24 minutes
Commissioned by Channel Four Television this documentary drama explores issues around sexuality and disability. Interviews with a wide range of disabled lesbian and gay people are intercut with recreations and performances, dispelling the myth that all disabled people are unhappy or have no sexual identity. It also looks at the difficulties of enduring prejudice as both a disabled and gay person.
Jo Pearson
All In Your Head | 1991
UK, 6 minutes
All In Your Head raises the profile of epilepsy, aiming to challenge stereotypes about this ‘invisible’ disability which affects nearly 1 in every 100 people in the U.K. Moving away from a traditional documentary format, it explores sensations, vulnerability and emotional dimensions by drawing on personal experience.
Heidi Tikka
On The Threshold of Liberty | 1992
Finland, 12 minutes
On The Threshold of Liberty acts as a record of living in a foreign culture, where the act of translation both splits and creates meaning from language, and articulation becomes a more visceral form of expression.
Access
Please note that the LUX building is inside Waterlow Park, not on the street. There are maps at all entrances to the park showing the location of LUX. The nearest park entrance to LUX is on Dartmouth Park Hill by the Dartmouth Park Lodge. Please note Waterlow Park is on a hill and from Archway: there is a steep walk up Highgate Hill; there are buses that run from Archway to Highgate Village. Find more information here: https://lux.org.uk/about-us/visit-us
Cinenova and LUX strive to be as accessible as possible so please contact us if you have any particular access needs by phone
020 3141 2960 or email [email protected]. The LUX building is fully wheelchair accessible and there are wheelchair accessible toilet facilities next door. Assistance dogs are welcome in all spaces.
