Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts

During Kulturnatt Bergen this year, BEK invites you to visit our project spaces for screenings of the film Electrical Gaza by Rosalind Nashashibi and the video work The Carrier by Hanan Benammar. 

Both works will be screened in a loop from 18:15 to 22:00.
Free entry and open for all. 

Rosalind Nashashibi: Electrical Gaza (2015)

Duration: 17 mins, 53 seconds

“Rosalind Nashashibi’s film “Electrical Gaza”, 2015, recasts Gaza as an enchanted place behind sealed borders, codified through danger and division, bristling with beauty and life. Shot prior to the Israeli assault on the area in 2014, it images scenes of the region where violence is, for once, not at the center. The camera luxuriates in quotidian life: kids play in an alley, horses are washed in the searing blue Mediterranean, and men prepare falafel and sing together in a living room.” – Alex Davidson for Frieze

In Electrical Gaza Rosalind Nashashibi combines her footage of Gaza, and the fixer, drivers and translator who were her constant company, with animated scenes. She presents Gaza as under a spell; isolated, suspended in time, difficult to access and highly charged. She shows us Gaza as she experienced it in the quiet pause before the onslaught of Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2014. Nashashibi travelled to Gaza with producer Kate Parker and cinematographer Emma Dalesman.

Rosalind Nashashibi is a London-based filmmaker and painter of mixed Palestinian and Northern Irish heritage. Her films use both documentary and speculative languages, where observations from her own life and the world around her are merged with paintings, fictional or sci-fi elements; often to propose models of collective living. 

Nashashibi has shown work in Documenta 14, Manifesta 7, the Nordic Triennial, and Sharjah X, She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2017 and won Beck’s Futures prize in 2003. She represented Scotland in the 52nd Venice Biennial. Her most recent solo shows include Vienna Secession, CAAC Seville, Chicago Art Institute and Kunstinstuut Melly, Rotterdam. She was a National Gallery artist in residence until 2020.

Hanan Benammar: The Carrier (2020)

Duration: 17 mins, 22 seconds

For many of us living in an urban context, pigeons are often described as “flying rats”. However, breeding pigeons is still a popular practice among small communities in Europe and larger ones in the Middle East. While observing a pigeon loft on Askøy with a spy camera, The Carrier is narrating stories with pigeons as protagonists, where among other things, homing pigeons are used by Palestinians in their struggle against the high-tech Israeli military.

The piece was commissioned by BEK in 2020 for the exhibition “Latent City”, curated by Åse Løvgren.

Hanan Benammar is an Algerian/French artist based in Oslo, who works conceptually in the field between geopolitical, environmental and social conditions. She also organizes and curates art projects as part of her artistic practice. Benammar is educated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Oslo and the Dutch Art Institute in the Netherlands. She has a broad display practice in visual and performing arts, most recently at Kunsthal Charlottenborg (Copenhagen), Radikal Unsichtbar (Hamburg), Edge of Wrong (Cape Town), Le Cube (Rabat), Black Box teater (Oslo), BEK – Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts (Bergen), Ultima Contemporary Music Festival (Oslo), Bildmuseet (Umeå) and The Golden Bridge (Reykjavík).

Accessibility

BEK’s space unfortunately is not wheelchair accessible. Please send us an email at bek@bek.no if you’re using a wheelchair, and we’ll do our best to facilitate your needs. Our space has all gender toilet facilities. Service dogs are welcome. We also provide the option of a quiet room.

Image: Rosalind Nashashibi, Electrical Gaza (2015), still.