OTOLITH TRILOGY (2003 – 2009)

Speakers: Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar, curator Chus Martinez and Shanay Jhaveri
In collaboration with: Project 88 and British Council

January 9, 2011 | 4.00 pm 
Little Theatre, National Centre for Performing Arts, Mumbai

As TJ Demos has argued in his essay Sabotaging the Future: The Essay Films of The Otolith Group (2009), Otolith 1 (2003), Otolith II (2007) and Otolith III (2009) (Otolith Trilogy) constitute a ‘remarkable series of essay films that engage the uncertain interval between aesthetic and political commitments.’ The Otolith Trilogy proposes temporal deconstruction that folds together past present and future’ thereby opening a route ‘to challenge the current unfolding of globalization, particularly its outcome presumed to be the result of historical inevitability’ The screenings will be followed by a discussion between the artists Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sager, curator Chus Martinez and critic Shanay Jhaveri. The Otolith Group’s exhibition ‘Westfailure’ will be on view at Project 88 from January 11 – 31, 2012.

The Otolith Group, based in London, UK., is an award winning artist led collective and organisation founded by Anjalika Sager and Kodwo Eshun in 2002 that integrates film and video making, artists writing, workshops, exhibition curation, publication and developing public platforms for the close readings of the image in contemporary society. The Group’s work is formally engaged with research led projects exploring the legacies and potentialities of artists led proposals around the document and the essay film, the archive, the aural and sonic medium, speculative futures and science-fictions.

Chus Martinez is dOCUMENTA (13) Head of Department, and Member of Core Agent Group, as well as Associate Curator at MACBA, Barcelona, where she was Chief Curator from 2008 to 2010. Previously she was Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005-08) and Artistic Director of Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2002-05). For the 50th Biennale di Venezia (2005), Martinez curated the National Pavilion of Cyprus, and in 2010 served as a Curatorial Advisor for the 29th Bienal de Sao Paulo. She lectures regularly and has written numerous catalogue texts and critical essays.

Shanay Jhaveri is a Phd. candidate at the Royal College of Art, London. He graduated from Brown University, concentrating in Art Semiotics and the History of Art and Architecture. He has edited a volume of essays titled Outsider Films on India: 1950-1990 and has curated film programmes at Tate Modern, Frieze and Iniva. He divides his time between Mumbai and London.