Sites of Memory: Experimental Film Study Day programmed by Ufuoma Essi

Join us for a study day exploring artist’s approaches to memory, and archives ­– using film as a medium to disrupt, challenge and reposition archives within their work.

Curated by Ufuoma Essi the study day focuses on moving image artists working with analogue film and archives (8mm, super8, 16mm 35mm). Expanding on Essi’s ongoing research into Black feminist approaches to history and memory and inspired by Toni Morrison’s Sites of Memory (which the day is named after) the study day will feature a programme of films by filmmakers expanding the medium of film and exploring the role and function of memory in their work.

With a focus on work by contemporary artists who use film to interrogate different forms of memory. Films that explore memories as sites of locations beyond the frame. Films that disrupt hegemonic narratives of our understanding of history either through their experiments with the archive or through the medium of film itself.

The day will feature film screenings, talks and contributions from artists, filmmakers, writers and curators including Tendai Mutambu.

Ufuoma Essi is an artist and filmmaker, working predominantly with film, moving image and sound. Her research revolves around Black feminist epistemologies and configurations of displaced histories, aiming to interrogate and disrupt the silences and gaps of political and historical narratives.

Ufuoma is part of Hospitalfield’s Future Plan Artist Residencies in 2023-24.