Suchergebnisse

This is the twelfth instalment of a collaborative effort by the Journal of Visual Culture and the Harun Farocki Institut, initiated by the COVID-19 crisis. The call sent to JVC's editorial board, and a wide selection of previous contributors and members of its extended communities, described the task as follows: "There is a lot of spontaneous, ad hoc opinion-making and premature commentary around, as to be expected. However, the ethics and politics of artistic and theoretical practice to be pursued in this situation should oblige us to stay cautious and to intervene with care in the discussion. As one of JVC's editors, Brooke Belisle, explains: 'We are not looking for sensationalism, but rather, moments of reflection that: make connections between what's happening now and the larger intellectual contexts that our readership shares; offer small ways to be reflective and to draw on tools we have and things we know instead of just feeling numb and overwhelmed; help serve as intellectual community for one another while we are isolated; support the work of being thoughtful and trying to find/make meaning…which is always a collective endeavour, even if we are forced to be apart.'"

LUX artists Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Morgan Quaintance discuss art and class in relation to Zimmerman's most recent film Art Class (2020), streamed on the LUX website until 16 October 2021 and Quaintance's Another Decade (2018). Andrea Luka Zimmerman is a Jarman Award winning artist, filmmaker and cultural activist whose work focuses on aspects of working class experience, and that of people living on the margins of society, that are seldom seen or discussed. Morgan Quaintance is a London-based artist and writer. His moving image work has been shown and exhibited widely. Over the past ten years, his critically incisive writings on contemporary art, aesthetics and their socio-political contexts, have featured in publications including Art Monthly, the Wire, and the Guardian. We discuss the ways in which class is instrumentalised by mainstream and popularised tropes, and structural concerns affecting many working class artists today, and how we need to make space for those not yet part of the conversation. How are the conversations around art and class shaped by stakeholders? We talk though imaginative refusals and being in coalition with each other. How to refuse the tropes that deny multiplicity? How to enable different imaginative versions of lives lived, and therefore, to also imagine differently? What are the social and political and imaginative possibilities?

Written and produced entirely by women, Doorways is the latest title from House Sparrow Press – an expansive, layered and self-reflexive anthology exploring the personal stories of one of society's most marginalised groups – women experiencing street homelessness. Growing out of the extreme personal experience that informed the sound and photographic works of artist Bekki Perriman's The Doorways Project, Doorways combines personal testimonies with new essays and commentary by renowned academics, activists, journalists, therapists and practitioners, exploring the cultural, social and political dimensions of homelessness, as well as the role of artists and institutions in challenging it. As the effects of capitalism and relentless property speculation blight and restrict the lives of millions, Doorways delivers an urgent and uncompromising dispatch on the realities of austerity, gendered violence and social cleansing in Britain today. It asks us to consider how much we really know about the trials of life for the growing number of women forced to live on our streets, in hostels or in homeless shelters, reminding us why and illustrating how their presence is not just a personal tragedy, but a social and political act of violence and injustice. Doorways creates an expansive, deeply textured, informed space of creative resistance that has never been more necessary. CONTENT ➢ Foreword: Moyra Peralta ➢ The Doorways Project: Bekki Perriman ➢ A Gendered Approach to Homelessness: Bekki Perriman ➢ The Real Housing Crisis and How We Overcome It: Andrea Gibbons ➢ Whose City Is It Anyway?: The Cleaning Out of City Spaces: Anna Minton ➢ Seen as Un-Seen: Homelessness and Visual Culture: Mary Paterson ➢Power and Control: How the Housing First Approach Can Redress the Balance for Women Experiencing Homelessness: Lisa Raftery ➢ Street Talk: Therapy of Presence: Pippa Hockton ➢ Violence and Trauma: A Societal Reality We Are All Responsible For: Laura E. Fischer ➢ How to Make Art Listen in a Housing Crisis: Janna Graham ➢ Two Reflections on Art and Neoliberalism: Shiri Shalmy and Andrea Luka Zimmerman ➢ The Aftermath of Street Homelessness: Bekki Perriman ➢ Afterword: Kate Tempest

"Since the end of human action, as distinct end products of fabrication, can never be reliably predicted, the means used to achieve political goals are more often than not of greater relevance to the future world than the intended goals". – Hannah Arendt "Between the experience of living a normal life at this moment on the planet and the public narratives being offered to give a sense to that life, the empty space, the gap, is enormous". - John Berger 'Bo' Gritz turned 80 this year. The great majority of those serving under him have not. Lt. Col. James Gordon 'Bo' Gritz - "the American Soldier" for the Commander-in-Chief of the Vietnam War – is one of the most decorated combatants in US history. Gritz was at the heart of American military and foreign policy – both overt and covert - from the Bay of Pigs to Afghanistan. He was financed by Clint Eastwood and William Shatner (via Paramount Pictures) in exchange for the rights to tell his story Their funding supported his 'deniable' missions searching for American POWs in Vietnam. He has exposed US government drug running, turning against the Washington elite as a result. He has stood for President, created a homeland community in the Idaho backlands and trained Americans in strategies of counter-insurgency against the incursions of their own government. He claims to remember every single one of the 400 people he killed. The media turned him into the inspiration behind Rambo, The A-Team's Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith and Coppola's Kurtz in Apocalypse Now. What does it mean to make a life like this? 6500 word essay

Film, curated exhibition + curated events (Nocturnal Creatures, Refugee Tales, Text Messages, Anti-university game play) On Loop: Civil Rites (2017, 28mins) Thank the following institutions and individuals who have lent campaigning materials from their collections: Holly Antrum, Andrew Cooper, Anton Califano, Aysen Dennis, Anita Gray, Tina Grace, Dan Jones, David Herd, Cee-J Hutchinson, London Action Resource Centre Archive, Alessio Lunghi, Lindis Percy, Noor Afshan Mirza, Anna Pincus, Refugee Tales, AnnRobinson, Juliet Jaques, NinaScott, Emma Sangster, Stanley Schtinter, Shiri Shalmi, Refugee Tales, Berna Vardar, Class War, Cathy Ward and those who wish to remain anonymous --- The collection of banners and posters from Greenham Common are dedicated to Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp co- founder Helen John who died in 2017. Black Women Will Not Be Intimidated, 1980–81; Take a Pill Mrs Brown, 1977 12 Women's Day March, 1975; Posters from See Red Women's Workshop (1974–90). The organisation ran collective poster making workshops in support of the women's liberation movement, countering negative images of women in advertising and the media. Their first commission was for International Women's Day in 1975 and they subsequently supported campaigns raging from healthcare politics to racial equality. Precarity PingPong, 2004; Poster for Precarity Ping Pong, a series of events organised by Greenpepper Magazine, Amsterdam and Mute Magazine, London, which explored issues of labour and precarity. Social Housing Not Social Cleansing, 2015; Poster made by artist Nina Scott for housing campaigning group Focus E15 Posters for The Women's Strike Assembly, a coalition of autonomous feminist groups organising around issues of paid and reproductive labour, trans and sex workers rights, gender violence and access to services. Sex / Work Strike, 2018, Women's Strike, 2018, There's No Liberation Without Trans Liberation, 2018, Women's Strike, 2018 Flyer for Peace News Issue 2443: Gender and Militarism, 2001; Poster for International Women's Day published in Peace News, 2012; Peace News is a community organised newspaper, established in 1936, that promotes peace and justice causes. A 2012 issue included a poster to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the women-led 'Bread and Roses' strike, in which 25,000 textile workers in the town of Lawrence, Massachusetts, USA, protested for fairer wages and better living conditions. Leaflet for JENGbA,2017; JENGbA (Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association) campaigns on behalf of prisoners and their families against convictions brought under controversial joint enterprise laws. Landlord Gangster,c.2015; We Want Secure Homes Now for Everyone, c. 2015; Posters gathered by Andrea Luka Zimmerman during housing protests Advance to Mayfair, 2016; Posters used in protests against the sale and redevelopment of social housing made by Class War, an anarchist newspaper and activist group set up in 1983. We Love our Home, which is why we support the Ayelsbury Occupation, 2015; Ayelsbury Occupation poster by Andrew Cooper, andrewcooper-unseen.org GentrificationWatch, 2015; This Area is Under Community Protection: Stop Evictions, c. 2015; Anti-Gentrification posters from the collection of Aysen Dennis. A feminist and anarchist, Dennis founded a campaign in 2000 to ght against the redevelopment of the South London Aylsebury Estate and the displacement of her community. Carnival Against Capital, 1999; The Carnival Against Capital, held on 18 June 1999, was an international day of protest timed to coincide with the 25th G8summit in Cologne, Germany. NO, 2003; Campaigning materials for Stop the War Coalition. Founded in September 2001 in the weeks following 9/11 and George W. Bush announcement of the 'war on terror', Stop the War Coalition has campaigned to prevent and end the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere. Artist, writer and activist David Gentleman designed a range of graphics featuring a red blood spatter. No War for Oil! c. 2004 Gin For Everyone: Plan C London, 2016; Poster designed for anti-capitalist organisation Plan C. The pink cocktail refers to the drinks served during Plan C London's monthly meetings, a gesture of decadence and luxury that counters the perceived frugality of other leftist groups Greenham Women Against Cruise: Take President Reagan to Court in the USA, 1983; Thousands of Women will Reclaim GreenhamCommon,1983; Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was a peace camp established in 1981 to protest at nuclear weapons being sited at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England Nothing to Lose but our Chains, 2017; Baby grow worn by baby Gabriel. The clothing was printed by the South London group of Sisters Uncut, who campaign on behalf of domestic violence survivors. Gabriel and his mother were housed as a result of Sisters Uncut meetings with the council. This is Privatised Space, 2016; Balloon printed with anti-capitalist message. Balloons were released by artist and activist Richard DeDominici at locations throughout Newcastle upon Tyne as a playful protest action. Found in London. AdSpaceHackPack, 2015; Toolkit for removing and replacing commercial advertising, designed by anti-capitalist collective Special Patrol Group. --- From LARC (London Action Resource Center) archive: This Election Use Your Cross Wisely, 2010 (LARC) Bring on The Cuts, 2010–15 (LARC) Welcome to WhitechApel: An Invitation., Unknown date; Campaigning materials from the Whitechapel Anarchist Group MayDay,2003; MayDay,2000; MayDayActionGuide,2003; Flyers for London May Day protests Reclaim the what??, 1991–2003; Reclaim the streets, 1991–2003; Posters used by Reclaim the Streets, a collective that promotes the community ownership of public spaces, founded in 1991. Please obstruct privatisation, c. 2007 We are more powerful than they can possibly imagine, 2000s Fracking is coming to the UK!!! Together we can stop it, 2017; Flyer for environmental campaigners Frack Off Storm the Banks!, 2009; Anti-capitalist poster for protests that accompanied the 2009 G20 summit held in London Who Killed Altab Ali, Never Forget Altab Ali, Bangladeshi Altab Ali was 24 years old when he was killed by members of the National Front in a racist attack on 4 May 1978. Since then, commemorations have been held annually on this day in addition to a wide range of campaigning activities that honour his memory and promote anti-racist causes. Banner by Dan Jones --- More banners: Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group Quilt, 2014; Quilt made as the result of a community sewing project with the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group. School children, detained and formerly detained asylum seekers and volunteers contributed patchwork panels featuring images of journey and friendship. The project was organised by Refugee Tales, an organisation promoting the rights of refugees Out of Order, 2018; Banner printed on an upside-down US flag by Lindis Percy, co-founder of the Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases. In 2001 Percy was initially ned after conducting a protest at a U.S. Air Force station in Norfolk, East Anglia. She subsequently brought a landmark case in the UK High Court, which granted legal authority to use and 'deface' the U.S. flag. Thank you Schtinter. Battersea CND,1985; Banner made by Battersea's CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament) Group and used at Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, a peace camp established in 1981 to protest at nuclear weapons being sited at RAF Greenham Common in Berkshire, England. Stairs Right Wall SexWorkisWork, 2018; Banner for The Women's Strike Assembly, a coalition of autonomous feminist groups organising around issues of paid and reproductive labour, trans and sex workers rights, gender violence and access to services. Stairs Left Wall JusticeForCleaners,2017; Banner made by United Voices of the World, an independent member- led trade union that organises for precarious workers, mainly in service industries. This banner was used as part of a successful campaign at the London School of Economics where cleaners, many of whom were low paid migrant workers, fought to be employed in-house rather than through a private contractor. Stairs Middle Wall LIARS, 2016; Banner used at the March for Europe on 2nd July 2016, shortly after the Brexit referendum. The slogan 'liars' was printed in response to pledges made during the referendum campaign. --- EVENTS: 9 July 2018 Are Rites Your Responsibility? Gallery visit and game play. A visit to artist and cultural activist Andrea Luka Zimmerman's screening room and installation (including key texts from 1968 and London protest banners from across the decades), part of the London Open 2018 at the Whitechapel Gallery. The central work is Andrea's 2017 film Civil Rites, an exploration of radical Newcastle and the political and social legacy of Martin Luther King's visit in 1967. The film is 28 minutes long. Game play: Part of the exhibition is the 1980s game 'Roots and Bootstraps' developed by feminist and anti-racist activist Pat Garrett (also founding member of the 1980s queer punk band The Frigging Little Bits) exploring class privilege. The game board is hand-drawn, and its rules and moves are designed to prompt discussion about social mobility, opportunity and allegiances. The game is based on first hand experiences and this play hopes to make a current version of it for 2018. Andrea Luka Zimmerman will talk about how the Civil Rites project came together, and one of the activist groups lending a banner may speak about their current campaign. --- 11 July 2018 Refugee Tales - Whitechapel Gallery 3- 3.30pm On the final day of its 2018 walk, the Refugee Tales project, which walks in solidarity with refugees, asylum seekers and detainees, paused at the gallery to recite articles from The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, marking its 70th anniversary. This special happening coincides with Andrea Luka Zimmerman's presentation in the exhibition of Civil Rites (2018). The film takes Martin Luther King's honorary doctorate acceptance speech at the University of Newcastle in 1967 as the point of departure for a timely meditation on contemporary social justice movements. Continuing its call for an end to indefinite detention, Refugee Tales 2018 runs from 7-11 July. --- 21 July 2018 Nocturnal Creatures - Whitechapel Gallery 8-10pm A shared reading that echoes Luka Zimmerman's film Civil Rights, exploring how poverty, racism and war continue to haunt our lives. Readings by Aysen Dennis, Evan Ifekoya, So Mayer, Liberty Anthony Sadler, Daniella Shreir and Andrea Luka Zimmerman.

Erase and Forget is an inquiry into the nature of human conscience and the limits of deniability. It premiered at the 2017 Berlin Film Festival, where it was nominated for the Glashuette most original documentary award. Charting 'the deep bonds between Hollywood's fictionalized conflicts and America's hidden wars', Andrea Luka Zimmerman's ERASE AND FORGET is a new investigative documentary which charts the extraordinary life and times of Bo Gritz, one of America's highest decorated veterans and the 'inspiration' for Rambo and Brando's Colonel Kurtz. Using never before seen archive footage of covert US operations, and interviews filmed over a ten year period, ERASE AND FORGET provides a complex perspective of an individual and a country in crisis. ERASE AND FORGET is a compelling inquiry into the nature of human conscience which raises urgent questions about US militarism and gun control, and embodies contemporary American society in all its dizzying complexity and contradictions. Erase and Forget was long-listed for BIFA new talent emerging producer award, with Ameenah Ayub Allen, 2018 / Nominated for Glashuette original documentary award, Berlin Film festival, 2017 /Platinum Reel Award, Nevada International Film Festival, 2018 / Semi finalist, best documentary Hot Springs Womens film festival, 2018 / Spotlight Documentary Film awards, 2017 Erase and Forget was screened at Spring Sessions in Wadi Rum, in Jordan (http://www.springsessions.org/happenings/announcement244?edition=edition2019-en) and in a special session at Goethe Institut Ramallah, including discussion with the director (https://www.events.ps/en/Events/1086/Screening-and-discussion-with-the-director-of-Erase--Forget). --- DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT: "You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions." Sven Lindqvist, from 'Exterminate All The Brutes' I chose to work with Bo over ten years because I needed to understand how he was part of history (as much as what history). I am fascinated by profound questions of responsibility – on the part of ourselves and others. There can be no moral high ground or hierarchy if we are genuinely seeking to understand extreme behaviour. We are part of a system that makes enormous profits out of structural and political violence. Bo is really a witness to the excesses of the military-industrial complex. I wanted to explore how a highly intelligent man came to believe, through cultural and social conditioning, that killing in such a way and on such a scale might be perceived as virtuous. My years with Bo recorded his reflections on life before, during and after his time as 'the real Rambo – the American Warrior'- when the reasons for transgressing these boundaries had shifted. Bo is a man of a thousand faces. His is a public life lived in the media age. It is a life made from fragments, from different positions, both politically and in terms of their mediation. His life is contradictory and assembled from all these shards. There is no single 'right' life or reading of his public activities. My portrait of Bo is drawn mainly from original material, which I shot over ten years, but it also includes found footage from the world's first truly public archive – the global online media bank, scattered across numerous platforms. My structural approach is instinctual, distinctive, and formally rigorous articulated in tightly selected montages – each emotional unfolding is countered with a denial of feeling, hence producing a confliction emotional experience, truer the creative maladjustment necessary when grappling with structural and political violence and their spectacular representations through Hollywood (dominant) cinema. While working with a broadly chronological, autobiographical narrative, I also operate associatively, tracking parallels and seeking echoes and refrains of action and reflection across the decades of Bo's diverse military, political and social experiences. The exploration of this complex and constantly changing relationship between event and image is one of my key intentions in and for the film. When contentious ideas and actions enter this social mediated space, all too often crude binaries (of action and reaction, right and wrong, etc…) are created. These are, as is evident across the world today, extremely dangerous. I see my film being in creative dialogue with Swedish writer Sven Lindqvist's Exterminate all the Brutes, a seminal work exploring the origins of totalitarian thinking. The film is an inquiry into the nature of human conscience and the limits of deniability. Over the course of a decade of filming, it became clear that the focus must be Bo's own relationship with his public image, activities and response (underpinned by the known and covert activities of his military career). Director's Statement on the Relationship with Cinema: Hollywood's Ghosts Fiction creates reality. Hollywood and political structures in the United States are tightly knit. On a material level, there are exchanges of personnel and funds. Hollywood regularly employs (often retired) covert operators and military staff as advisers and the story rights of military operations often become the properties of major studios. Whereas the purchase of such rights is, by definition, often after the fact, on occasion funding precedes the event. For instance, a covert prisoner-of-war recovery mission led by Bo Gritz was in part financed by Clint Eastwood in return for a possible option on the story. It is variously claimed, that Bo is the soldier who the Rambo series is modelled on. The flow of funds from Hollywood to the military is not exclusive. The Pentagon contributes by providing army assistance (military advisers, helicopters, use of bases, etc…) to productions that it deems supportive of US policy. Such films inform climates of public opinion within which policy operates. They open imaginative spaces and arenas of ethical consideration in which certain kinds of military operations are validated. Furthermore, Hollywood cinema serves as a curious, discursive space for policy makers (and thus for speechwriters as well as scriptwriters). Ronald Reagan, on numerous occasions, publicly drew on the Rambo series to articulate his foreign policy vision and promote his political aspirations: "After seeing Rambo last night, I know what to do next time this happens." [Ronald Reagan, 1985] Where Reagan at times dipped into the movies to illustrate an argument, Bo is produced as if he were a movie star, by both the media and by his own public performances. On January 31st, 1983, CBS News described Bo's foray into Laos as "the stuff from which movies are made…a case of life imitating art". The inadvertently implied elision of difference between 'life' and 'art' in this strictly nonsensical news-speak is telling. Does the above mean that 'this mission is a model for movies that this mission is modelled on'? Touring the country for his own presidential campaign, Bo is hailed on national television as the 'real-life Rambo' as well as the "model for the real life Rambo". The description of Bo as a mythical figure has been drawn in terms of another such character: Colonel Kurtz. A journalist on Nevada Regional news, declared that Bo is "[…] the mythical Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now…". It was not just the news media however, that tried to fuse Bo with the 'mythical' Colonel Kurtz. In 1975, Francis Ford Coppola's production company approached Bo during the making of Apocalypse Now to ask for permission to superimpose Marlon Brando's face over Bo's. As Bo explains, "he wanted to use the photograph in General William C. Westmoreland's book showing me with Nurse Toi kneeling in front of a lot of really mean-looking Cambodian mercenaries as the headliner for his new movie. Colonel Kurtz was commanding a Cambodian army and I was Major Gritz, and I did command a Cambodian army. Matter of fact I was the first to do so". What does it mean that Bo so eagerly figures himself as the man who inspired these representations? After all, he is not unaware of the fact that Coppola's Kurtz and indeed, the entire plot of Apocalypse Now, is taken from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and set in the context of the Indochinese war. Rather, Bo's suggestion that 'Kurtz' is a play on 'Gritz' not only indicates a desire to project himself as famous and infamous, it also points to a willingness to perform his own history, including that of his covert operations, in accordance with the conventions of Hollywood cinema. Bo's willingness to perform according to a 'script' (both inspired by Hollywood and subsequently itself adapted and produced by Hollywood in a feedback loop between the silver screen and covert policy) gives the POW 'production' an actual star – a star who becomes a simulacum of the Hollywood characters and vice versa. Bo's authenticity is produced not only by his own insistence that he is the basis for his Hollywood avatars, but equally by his parallel insistence that he has no interest in these figures or, as he dismissively puts it, 'Hollyweird' and its 'play acting'. This denial, by masking his desire to identify himself as the 'original', therefore makes his identification more plausible, precisely by producing him as 'the real thing'. The chicken comes back to roost Rambo III was released in 1988. The film ends with a dedication printed over its final scene: 'This film is dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan'. At the time of its release, the Reagan administration's covert funding for operations in Afghanistan was at its highest. The film premiered as President Gorbachev announced the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan, a policy decision that was welcomed by none more than the marketing team working on Rambo III. The film rode the wave of euphoria for US political and military 'success'. This was, then, a historical context which enabled the film's hero to be figured – both by the film's marketing team and, indeed, by audiences, who read the film in the social and discursive context of the times – as individually responsible for the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan. There is another, utterly un-distributed film that stands as testimony to the Reagan government's dedication to the 'gallant people of Afghanistan'. Untitled and shot on Super 8 Sound film in the autumn of 1986, it is the record of a secret training program for Afghan Mujahedeen on US soil. Bo claims that the training program was initiated by the National Security Council (NSC) under the direction of State Department official William Bode and that the funding was allegedly channelled through Stanford Technology, a CIA front-company. Spectres Bo was part of a world where deniability lies at the forefront of action on the uncertain line between knowing and unknowing (post-truth before the event …). The spectral nature of covert operations resides in their being officially, 'neither confirmed, nor denied'. Thus the spectral is produced by official discourse, but admissible to it only as that which cannot be admitted. However, rather than being a product of official denial, it is a product of 'deniability'. This involves not the denial of a particular event, but the denying of official authorisation of an event. Dislocating action and intention, cause and effect, creates a shadow realm from which strategic operations march forward like zombies. An operation appears to have been carried out in the absence of an originating order. The action is spectral in as much as it seems to escape the laws of causality that govern the rest of the world – it is an effect without identifiable cause. A methodology of making This led me to develop a film making approach through which I have tried to understand the person within this context of visibility and invisibility – between deniable reality and fiction. There is a curious symmetry between the careers of Reagan and Bo. On the one hand there is the actor turned politician, who became President and imagined he'd been a soldier; and on the other there is the soldier who would have been President, who flirted with the movies and now defines himself as 'real' in contra-distinction to them. The relationship between Bo and the President he served has surely been subject to Bo's mythologizing autobiographical imagination. Nonetheless, the speculative discursive space that has opened around the relationship (in biographies and autobiographies, in news reports and internet conspiracy sites) has effected a conflation of political drama and movies, of covert operator (whose modus operandi is disguise, dissemblance, subterfuge) and movie actor. And so, focusing on such a figure as Bo, has allowed me to trace a series of discursive and imaginary movements that issue not so much into an exchange between domains, as a conflation of domains. Bo seems to induce a certain ontological confusion, a collapse of fiction and history, biography and popular myth, which is not restricted to his own imagination. It is a confusion that the media are happy to propagate (this is so for his detractors as well as his champions, for the major news channels and fringe internet conspiracy blogs alike). And how timely for our times this is… --- '.like a Lynchian nightmare of right-wing America.' Total Film ★★★★ 'The film is so loopy you end up like Laocoön, wreathed by serpents of paradox and contradiction.' Financial Times ★★★★ 'Zimmermann marshals her material…with relentlessly thought-provoking confidence.' Empire ★★★★ 'An especially probing portrait of a wounded man and his role in the fetishisation of state-sanctioned violence.' Time Out ★★★★ 'This illuminating portrait of a rather broken champion is enriched by extraordinary archive footage.' Filmuforia ★★★★ 'Gripping and jaw-dropping, it's a documentary that needs to be seen to be believed.' Morning Star ★★★★ 'Bo's nonchalance when talking about his behaviour in countries such as Panama makes your jaw drop. An education.' EVENING STANDARD 'This is a new way to make a documentary, exploiting the bountiful public record of the Internet age.' Variety …like a Lynchian nightmare of right-wing America. Tim Coleman, Total Film Erase and Forget reflects the kind of ideological instability that has contributed to the US's surreal political moment. Jessica Loudis, Frieze ERASE AND FORGET explores 'the deep bonds between Hollywood's fictionalized conflicts and America's hidden wars' through a complex portrayal of US soldier, whistle-blower and ex-presidential candidate Bo Gritz, taking us to a world before President Trump. One of America's highest decorated veterans, the 'inspiration' behind RAMBO, Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith (THE A-TEAM) and Brando's Colonel Kurtz (APOCALYPSE NOW), Gritz was at the heart of American military and foreign policy – both overt and covert – from the Bay of Pigs to Afghanistan, before turning whistle-blower and launching anti-government training programmes. Today he lives in the Nevada desert where he once secretly trained Afghan Mujahedeen, is loved by his community and still admired as a hero figure by white supremacists for his role in the Ruby Ridge siege of 1992. This event was a key turning point in the rise of the far right and militia anti-Government groups in the US. Filmed over ten years, Zimmerman's film is an artist's perspective of an individual and a country in crisis, which raises urgent questions about US militarism and gun control. Deploying confessional and exploratory interviews, news and cultural footage, creative re-enactment and previously unseen archive material, ERASE AND FORGET explores the implications on a personal and collective level of identities founded on a profound, even endemic violence. It examines the propagation of that violence through Hollywood and the mass media, the arms trade and ongoing governmental policy. Revealing the filmmaker's own nuanced relationship with a controversial subject, without judgment and sensationalism, ERASE AND FORGET proposes a multi-layered investigation of war as a social structure, a way of being for individuals and countries in what is becoming an era of 'permanent conflict'.

Andrea Luka Zimmerman's first UK solo exhibition + curated events Common Ground catalogue entry: The work of Andrea Luka Zimmerman explores the impact of globalisation, power structures, militarism and denied histories. Common Ground, Zimmerman's first UK solo exhibition, celebrates strategies of social and cultural resistance and proposes new ways of living together in the face of a threatened idea of the 'common good'. Central to the exhibition, Zimmerman's essay film Estate, a Reverie (2015) tracks the long drawn out closure of the Haggerston Estate in East London and the utopian promise of social housing it once offered. Filmed over seven years, Estate, a Reverie reveals the spirited everyday humanity and resilience of residents who, in circumstances like these, are habitually overlooked by media representations and wider social responses. The film portrays the complex relationships between people and the conditions in which they find themselves; asking how we might resist stereotypes of class, gender, ability, disability and geography. The themes of Estate, a Reverie resonate in further films, images, documents and events brought together for Common Ground. Taskafa - Stories of the Street (2013), is a film about survival and co-existence told through the lives of the street dogs of Istanbul and the citizens who care for them. It is voiced by the late writer and storyteller John Berger from his own novel King: A Street Story (1988). Zimmerman's Merzschmerz (2014) is a series of short videos in which children retell (from memory) fairy tales written by the German artist Kurt Schwitters to an adult neighbour or friend. These short scenes draw attention to the process of remembering and forgetting – as well as addition and subtraction – that is essential to the handing on of stories from one person to another. They are tender portraits which show the role of a listener to be as important as that of a narrator in the telling of a tale. Common Ground provides an environment for open discussion, research and debate about the issues at the heart of these films and the other work in the exhibition. A series of talks, discussions, readings and screenings are organised over three weekends during the exhibition. There is a library area within the gallery with books and archival material related to the projects, where visitors are welcome to sit and look, listen or read. --- ADDITIONAL EVENTS: (Un) Common Saturday 29 April 2017, 2–5pm Andrea Luka Zimmerman hosts a drop in event with collaborators on her film Estate, a Reverie; David Roberts, Elam Forrester and Lorna Forrester. Elam Forrester Born in London, Elam Forrester is a young filmmaker and photographer who has worked on a number of film projects and exhibitions both in the UK and in Central America, focusing on social issues such as housing, London's vanishing markets, issues affecting young Londoners and Women's Rights in El Salvador. In 2015 she produced her own film and photographic exhibition called Stories of El Salvador, which included her short films and photographs that she made while volunteering there. Elam is also a graduate of University of the Arts, London College of Communication. Lorna Forrester Lorna was born in Jamaica, and came to Bristol in the late 70s to join her family. After leaving school she moved to London where she's lived ever since and now works in Education. She lived on Haggerston Estate for nearly 20 years until its demolition. Discussion: Common Wealth Saturday 20 May 2017, 12–5pm This afternoon open discussion about housing and redevelopment addresses how these issues affect people in and around Bristol today. Andrea Luka Zimmerman invites guest campaigners, activists and others who are involved in related projects or research to take part. Before this event at Spike Island, join us at Knowle West Media Centre at 10am for a local walking tour and introduction to their project We can make…homes, exploring how communities can lead and influence the development of housing in their area. This is also an opportunity to see the exhibition We can make…, which includes work by artists Caitlin Shepherd and Charlotte Biszewski made with Knowle West residents. Caitlin and Charlotte are joining the afternoon discussion at Spike Island. This local walking tour is led by Melissa Mean, Head of Arts Programme at KWMC. In Common Saturday 17 June 2017, 2–8pm Share on Twitter Share on Facebook Share on Google + Join us to celebrate the work of John Berger, a prolific writer of powerful art criticism, poetry and fiction. This event combines talks, screenings and an audio recording of Berger reading Andrey Platonov's short story A Sparrow's Journey, heard by candlelight.

Talk by Andrea Luka Zimmerman on the collaboration with John Berger on her film Taskafa, Stories of the street. Born in Stoke Newington in 1926, John Berger was one of the most influential artists, critics and writers of his generation. Ways of Seeing changed our understanding of art and made us question everything from the public ownership of art to the male gaze. Tom Overton, who curated Berger's archive at the British Library and is working on his biography, discusses his life and work with Andrea Luka Zimmerman, who worked with Berger on her film Estate, A Reverie, based in Haggerston.

Aesthetica Art Prize shortlisted artist Andrea Luka Zimmerman, lecturer at Central St Martins and nominee for the Jarman Award and winner of the ArtAngel Open Award, spoke in conversation with Maggie Ellis, Head of Artists' Moving Image at Film London, about the evolution that is occurring in artists' film as it defies categorisation through adaptation of more cinematic practices. Working at the intersection of public and private memory, Zimmerman uses fiction and documentary devices to challenge official histories, marginalisation and political, social and economic violence. Tackling themes in today's artistic climate through lectures, portfolio reviews and panel discussions, the Future Now symposium focuses on the arts ecosystem within a broader social context. The symposium is a place for an exchange of ideas, offering support, talent development and networking opportunities to those working in the sector.

This essay is a commissioned interview with Andrea Luka Zimmerman about her film Prisoner of War (2016). Zimmerman has made films in the USA and Indonesia exploring the impact of globalisation and marginalised histories. Her essay-film Prisoner of War (2016) explores US militarism and foreign policy through a character study of Bo Gritz, the most decorated Green Beret of the Vietnam War and a former Special Forces Commander in Latin America. This essay was commissioned by 'How to work together' to accompany the event 'Sharna Pax: How to work together' at Chisenhale Gallery, London, 1st December 2015. The event included screenings and discussion on films by Eva Marie Rødbro, Andrea Luka Zimmerman (Prisoner of War (excerpt), 2016, 10 mins.), Seamus Harahan and Chan Hau Chun. This was part of Sharna Pax's ongoing research for How To Work Together's 'Think Tank', which involves conversations with artists and filmmakers who work with collaboration and particular anthropological sensibilities. How to Work Together is a three-year (2013-2016) shared programme of contemporary art commissioning and research devised by Chisenhale Gallery, The Showroom and Studio Voltaire.

'Estate, a Reverie' tracks the passing of the Haggerston Estate (1936-2014) in Hackney, London and the utopian promise of social housing it offered, with a spirited celebration of extraordinary everyday humanity. Filmed over seven years, 'Estate, a Reverie' reveals and celebrates the resilience of residents who are profoundly overlooked by media representations and wider social responses. Interweaving intimate portraits with the residents' own historical re-enactments, landscape and architectural studies and dramatised scenes, Estate, a Reverie asks how we might resist being framed exclusively through class, gender, ability or disability, and even through geography. Filmmaker's statement: As someone who has spent the vast majority of their life living on large public housing estates, both in Munich and then in London, it was incredibly important to me that the film I was making was not about the community it depicts, but made from within it. The shared living came first. The film followed as an expression of commitment and gratitude to the people with whom I shared 17 years of life. However, it is of course also an interrogation of the political and social forces that lead people / residents to become marginalized and increasingly overlooked and ignored by the wider political and social realm. Over the concentrated duration of making (seven years), various formal filmmaking strategies were deployed. These included long-term observational documentary, dramatic enactment, role play (both historical and contemporary) and interventions in public space and with a wider public. This hybrid aspect of the film developed not out of a desire to be aesthetically "avant-garde" but rather because the various devices were simply the most productive in terms of conveying both the layered aspects of the site, historically, architecturally and socially, and also the similarly textured identities the residents found themselves living within, in terms of how they were viewed by peers, social agencies, and the neighbouring public. The film sought to give the residents a voice and a visual presence – to counter the many myths and clichés of their mainstream representation with images of resilience, strength, and a celebration of spirited existence regardless of the social and economic hand they had been dealt. The film would have been impossible to make without the enormous commitment of the residents and many others - who gave freely of time, equipment and resources to enable the film's production. In this way it was deeply collaborative. The film also seeks to challenge what a documentary about housing might be, even at this time of acute crisis within UK housing. It was a very conscious decision to move away from the statistical and expository towards a poetics of everyday life, built on the extended engagement detailed above. It seeks to inhabit the reverie of the title, offering a certain tone of memory, subjective of course, but one grounded in a common experience of living within difference. This is perhaps a kind of utopian possibility, formed by the shared time of living in an environment confirmed for erasure. However, it also hopes to offer a modest signpost towards a wider relevance and way of being in the city; a more inclusive and supportive form of social and personal interaction, taking place within a more porous and collectively focused urban environment. BFI critics list of best films released on DVD in 2017 Nominated for the 2015 Grierson Award - Best Newcomer Documentary Shortlisted for the Aesthetica Arts Prize Timely, lyrical, made over seven years from within the Hackney housing estate featured A utopian fever dream lived, and a community made, by those abandoned by the structures around them A profound exploration of difference, marginalisation and resilience See also http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/8951/ for additional information about this work.

by Andrea Luka Zimmerman, text and voiced by John Berger "A work as profound as it is protesting". (Sight & Sound Critic's Choice, best films of 2013, Sukhdev Sandhu). "Do not miss!" (Sabah newspaper; Istanbul Film Festival, 2013) "A whisper of what we do to people" (Hackney Citizen, London Film Festival, October 2013) "In other words, what is true of dogs and other animals – that some humans seek to exclude them from their lives for the sake of a 'sanitised' (bourgeois?) existence – seems also to be true of people". (WJRC Brown, Notes from the LFF) "At once a genuinely singular portrait of a world city in transition, an affecting and committed study of those marginalized by globalization and an empathetic vision of resistance through a wholly different register of belonging, Taskafa is that rarest of breeds, a work of poetry and praise, singing of the heightened daily joys that come from a true comradeship between species." (Gareth Evans, Film curator Whitechapel Gallery, London). --- SYNOPSIS: Taşkafa is a feature length documentary essay about memory and the most necessary forms of belonging, both to a place and to history, through a search for the role played in the city by Istanbul's street dogs and their relationship to its human populations. Through this exploration, the film opens a window on the contested relationships between power and the public, community and categorisation (in location and identity), and the ongoing struggle / resistance against a single way of seeing and being. Despite several major attempts by Istanbul's rulers, politicians and planners over the last 400 years to erase them, the city's street dogs have persisted thanks to an enduring alliance with widespread civilian communities, which recognize and defend their right to co-exist. Taşkafa gathers the voices of diverse Istanbul residents, shopkeepers, and street-based workers, all of whom display a striking commitment to the wellbeing and future of the city's canine population (a community of street dogs - and cats - free of formal ownership but fed and cared for by numerous individuals). From the rapidly gentrifying city centre district of Galata to the residential islands of the Sea of Marmara and beyond, Taşkafa navigates a history of empathy with, and threats to this highly distinctive urban community. Taşkafa is structured around readings by John Berger, from his novel King, a story of hope, dreams, love and resistance, told from the perspective of a dog belonging to a community facing disappearance, even erasure. In Taşkafa, this voice is gifted to a wider community and range of perspectives: to dogs, a city and, finally, to history. John Berger's text and delivery take the viewer on a journey from Karakoy to Hayirsiz'ada, the island where, in the 1800s, tens of thousands of dogs were exiled to die. Offering a collage of testimonials to the inestimable value of non-human populations to the emotional and psychological health of the city, and a striking statement of witness both to advocacy and persecution across the centuries, Taşkafa portrays - and embodies – the vibrant, collective spirit of protest and enduring solidarity with which it closes (mass demonstrations opposing current municipal proposals to expel the street animals). --- DIRECTOR STATEMENT: I wanted to explore how public space becomes a battleground for the contested relationship between corporate making - through demolition and redevelopment of vast swathes of the city (an increasingly international process of erasure) - and the unfolding of everyday lives within this idea of what is commonly called 'progress', one embedded with promises of high tech security measures to keep us safe (inside gated housing complexes, shopping malls etc…). What if, instead, we could hold onto a curious gaze, one that resists what comes - with its own pre-ordained rules and intentions - to a place? In such a location, this fixed looking would view a dishevelled street dog as abject, while our warmer attention might appreciate it as an emblem of love and endurance. To us in Europe, the fate of such animals is perhaps a reminder of the violence of modernity, where all that did not belong to its idea was banished from sight. Taşkafa is not finally about dogs as such. It is about the way people seek, still and especially now, to belong to a larger context than themselves, one which respects other creatures and wishes them to play a significant role in their lives. The key issue is not whether we live securely, especially in its 'official' sense, but rather that we don't lose touch with the shared reality that surrounds us.

From 18 February to 28 March 2015 Real Estates was a project coordinated by art collective Fugitive Images opening at PEER as a social, discursive and imaginative space around issues of housing and spatial justice in East London through a constantly changing series of exhibitions, screenings, discussions, readings and workshops. 'This project arrives at the end of a seven-year series of collaborative works with our neighbours of the Haggerston Estate. Our work came from within the community, with whom we cultivated other spaces to gather, share and campaign before the estate was demolished. Our neighbourhoods and communities are facing even greater threats from new developments and policies that separate and stratify us. But there are also many that have resisted these forces. In these six-weeks we invite in other communities, speakers and artists related to the housing crisis in London. The project will act as a platform for campaign groups and engaged makers to bring their important work into a different space, to share with us a glimpse of their own long-term projects on key sites. The gallery will host works that connect us, that illuminate, that bring pain to the surface, that inspire tenderness, that reject terrifying social injustices and restore ethical imperatives. The events programme brings together discussions around eviction, displacement and homelessness and their expression through an art that is committed to being made public and shared. This is not for profit, there nothing for sale and all events will be free.' Fugitive Images Fugitive Images are Andrea Luka Zimmerman and David Roberts, a collaborative cultural activist producing agency, with a particular interest in, and commitment to, the social organisation of urban space. The exhibition was an opportunity to extend this collaboration to other communities, campaigners and artists who have made it their life's work to make visible the impacts of eviction, displacement and homelessness on everyday lives. These rooms hosted works and events that connect us, that illuminate, that bring pain to the surface, that inspire tenderness, that voice solidarity. Together we hope to develop a deeper understanding and find strategies to resist terrifying social injustices and restore ethical imperatives. Exhibiting work from: Fugitive Images (Andrea Luka Zimmerman and David Roberts), Tom Hunter, James Mackinnon, Bekki Perriman, Moyra Peralta, Cardboard Citizens, DIG Collective (William Bock, Alberto Duman, Sophie Mason and Mark Morgan), Focus E15 Campaign, Smart Urhoife, UEL Unit 10. Contributions from: Owen Jones, Hackney Digs, Pau Faus, Pau Faus, Silvia Gonzáles-Laá, Xavi Andreu, Aysen Denis, John Smith, Jane Rendell, Beverley Robinson, Aysen Dennis, Richard Baxter, Caterina Sartori, Brandon LaBelle, John Rogers, Jeremy Till, Barry Watts, Ken Loach, Kerry Simmons, Dave Sinclair, Lesley Woodburn, Sarah Kwei, Dave Smith, Paul Heron, Felicity Downing, Adrian Jackson, Marcia Farquhar, David Madden, Lisa McKenzie, Tom Gann, Alberto Duman, Louise Sayarer, Eva Vikstrom, Tom Cordell, Kate Macintosh, Paul Watt, Melissa Butcher, Jon Fitzmaurice, Fuel Poverty Action, Tawanda Nyabango, Jasmin Parsons, Geraldine Dening, Alison Balance, Patrick Langley, Morgan Quaintance, Rab Harling, Sue Lukes, Advisory Service for Squatters, Green and Black Cross, Legal Defence and Monitoring Group, Sweets Way Estate, HASL, Unite Communities, Our West Hendon, Guinness, Skills Network, Radial Housing Network, Dorothy Allan-Pickard, Rastko Novakovic, Steven Ball, Kate Belgrave, Jason Parkinson, Julian Samboma, LCAP, Sibyl Trigg, John Murray, Elisabeth Blanchet, Jane Hearn, Andre Anderson, Raze, Predz UK, Kayden Bell, Jade Snyper, Nathaniel Telemaque, Municipal Dreams, Guillaume Meigneux, Stephen Watts, Lorna Forrester, Elam Forrester, Alison Marchant, Gillian McIver, Emer Mary Morris, Cathy Ward, Nela Milic. --- Programme overview Each week PEER will host a rolling exhibition programme, events and screenings featuring a number of strands. from 7pm – Openings and socials 2-5pm – Class Room, workshops and lectures for students and the public from 6.30pm – Focus, film screenings, talks, readings and actions from 6.30pm – Film screenings 2-5pm – Homeworks – Public talks from key figures/campaigns on housing All of the events are FREE, but it is strongly advised to arrive at least 10 minutes prior to the start time as space is limited and seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis. Weekly Programme: 18 February 7pm, Owen Jones, author, campaigner and Guardian columnist will launch the Real Estates project. Week One 18 to 21 February This week expands on the Estate project by Fugitive Images, featuring material generated from their long-term engage- ment on the Haggerston Estate in collaboration with residents and local practitioners. Key events include an evening with filmmaker John Smith including screenings of Hackney Marshes and Blight, UEL Unit 10 students will hold a seminar on their design and engagement with the Nightingale Estate and talks from the information, support and campaign group Hackney Digs. Week Two 25 to 28 February This week features a large-scale model of the Holly Street Estate (demolished in 2001), a photographic sculpture concieved and designed by artists James Mackinnon and Tom Hunter. Hunter will also exhibiting photographs of Holly Street residents (1997) and his film A Palace for Us (2010). Events include workshops with sound artist Brandon LaBelle and architectural theoretician Jane Rendell, and a talk by architect and Head of Central Saint Martins, Jeremy Till. Film- maker and writer John Rogers (Trews Reports/Drift Report) surveys his ongoing series of videos highlighting housing cam- paigns around London including the New Era Estate, West Hendon, and Save Soho. Week Three 4 to 7 March This week is themed around homelessness. Bekki Perriman's The Doorways Project explores homeless culture through photography and sound, inviting visitors to pay attention to the intimate, sometimes humorous, often disturbing and mostly ignored stories of homeless people. This will be accompanied by photographs by Moyra Peralta and work from Cardboard Citizens which has been making theatre with homeless people for over 20 years, for homeless and non-home- less audiences. Cardboard Citizens is informed and inspired by Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, using the arts to provoke debate and rehearse actions. Events include a screening of Ken Loach's Cathy Come Home and talks by performance artist Marcia Farquhar and campaigners Lesley Woodburn and Barry Watt. Week Four 11 to 14 March This week is curated by DIG Collective, formed of William Bock, Alberto Duman, Sophie Mason and Mark Morgan, who came together to interrogate demolition and redevelopment, ritual and nature in Hackney Central. Week Five 18 to 21 March This week is run by Focus E15 Campaign, continuing to build their movement that demands SOCIAL HOUSING, NOT SOCIAL CLEANSING. The week will be a melting pot of ideas and events, exhibiting visual materials and films about their campaign, hosting an eviction resistance workshop, open mic night, discussions and socials. Week Six 25 to 28 March The final week will feature an expanded enquiry from Fugitive Images, including politics and high fashion expressed in the Ghana Must Go bags made by Estate fashion designer Smart Urhiofe. Events include a panel discussion by and on Women, Home and Activism with Lorna & Elam Forrester, Gillian McIver, Lesley Woodburn, Emer Mary Morris, Alison Marchant, Cathy Ward,Aysen Dennis, Nela Milic, and Andrea Luka Zimmerman; a screening of Guillaume Meigneux's HLM – (Slightly Modfied Housing); readings from poet Stephen Watts; and an evening with the Authors of the Estate project contributors – Andre Anderson, Raze, Predz UK, Kayden Bell, Jade Snyper, Nathaniel Telemaque. PEER, LUX, Restless Futures, CSM. Fugitive Images are Andrea Luka Zimmerman and David Roberts, a collaborative cultural activist producing agency, with a particular interest in, and commitment to, the social organisation of urban space.