Black Arts Series Screening

African American Express, 2024, 2 min 41 sec

Song for the New World, 2021, 9 min

About the film

Years after the disappearance of her father in Scotland, a young woman recalls her childhood on a Caribbean island. 

Biography

From Haitian descent, Miryam Charles is a director, producer and cinematographer living in Montreal. She has produced several short and feature films. She is also the director of several short films. Her films have been presented at various festivals in Quebec and internationally. She has just completed the direction of her first feature film This House. Her work explores themes related to exile and the legacies of colonization.

Force et Forme – Partie II, 2022, 12 min.

About the film 

What if you received an order you can’t execute? What if you were in danger? What if you tried to do what you were told? What if you needed time? What if it hurt? What if you just couldn’t? What if you said something? What if they broke you? What if that moment was watched, recorded, shared? What if you were ignored, mocked, rejected in public? What if you were a black disabled body facing that violence? How would it feel?

Biography

Po B. K. Lomami is an indisciplinary artist-researcher, teacher, and community organizer. They are a Congodescendant from Belgium currently based in Tiohtià:ke-Mooniyang-Montreal.

Exploring failure and Afrofuturist principles and methodologies, Lomami’s art practice revolves around the displacement of work, the becoming of their subjectivity, and the possible collective futures with black, crip, queer and Afrofeminist perspectives.

8 times, 2024, 14 min.

About the film

8 Times delves into the life of Muhammed, a 39-year-old man who finds himself at a crossroads after experiencing the dissolution of his sixth marriage. As he embarks on his seventh and eighth attempts at matrimony, Muhammed begins to reflect deeply on the path that led him to this point, questioning the choices and circumstances that have shaped his complex romantic journey.

Biography

Adam Mbowe was born in the USA, raised in Alberta, and is now based in Montreal, Quebec. As a filmmaker and video artist, Adam explores the boundaries of visual storytelling with a focus on digital formats, sociological phenomena, third cultures, satire, the spectacle, and screen cultures. Their work often takes a playful approach to social commentary and Black identity, embodying the idea that, at the end of the day, it’s not that serious. Adam holds a Master’s degree in Cinematic Arts from Concordia University and continues to work in installations and short films. Their work has been featured at Images Festival, Festival Filministes, Regent Park Film Festival, and the Kingston Canadian Film Festival.

Biography

Elena Stoodley is a singer, author, songwriter and sound designer and a community organizer. Born in Tio'tia:ke, Montreal, she often blends her passion for social justice and black liberation with her art practices. She studied Creative Writing and Electroacoustic music and performed her music internationally, including in Cameroon and in the Republic of Congo. She sometimes gives workshops or consults on topics of anti-oppressive work practices and intersectional inclusion.  

About the film 

Grains - skin – home was made as part of a larger body of work presented by the duo exhibition Sutures at The Visual Arts Centre of Clarington (VAC) in 2022. Eve and Emii Alrai visited garden sites, research local history, explore regional iconography, and examine how monuments propagate territorial statehood and settlement in the Durham Region. After injury, a suture makes you whole. Its scar, though rough or imperfect, signifies a healing. This transformative process is not unlike Alrai + Tagny’s production as the artists negotiate themes of reflection, healing, and physical reconnection. As China Miéville writes, “Scars are memory. Like sutures. They stitch the past to me.” Tagny focused on how communities at the margins commit to living, rather than merely surviving through a lens-based installation practice. She centered garden spaces to mend traumatic disruptions in accordance with nature. She investigated these man-made sanctuaries that simultaneously encompass all stages of the living—from luscious growth to decay—to engage in processes of renewal, reconnection, and transformation. 

Biography

Eve Tagny is a Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based artist. Her practice considers gardens and landscapes as mutable sites of personal and collective memory — inscribed in dynamics of power, colonial histories and their legacies. Weaving lens-based mediums, installation, text and performance, she explores spiritual and embodied expressions of grief and resiliency, in correlation with nature’s rhythms, cycles and materiality. Tagny has a BFA in Film Production from Concordia University and a Certificate in Journalism from University of Montreal. Recent exhibitions include Henry Art, Seattle; MNBAQ, MAJ, Momenta and MAC, Montreal; Cooper Cole and Franz Kaka, Toronto. Recent performances include Swiss Institute, NYC; Nuit Blanche, Toronto.

This program is a partnership between the NouLa Center For Black Students, FOFA Gallery, and the Visual Collections Repository (VCR). 

The NouLa Centre for Black Students is dedicated to fostering Black students' full engagement, access, and sense of belonging at Concordia. We offer resources, services, and programming for Concordia students from Black communities, and we bridge access with internal units and external organizations that can support Black student success and wellness.

The Visual Collections Repository (VCR) supports research and teaching for the Faculty of Fine Arts by providing visual resources media services and programming and training opportunities for students, faculty and researchers.