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New Artist’s Commissions for Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival 2020

News


Published

12 August 2020

New Artist’s Commissions for Berwick Film and Media Arts Festival 2020

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival presents newly commissioned works by artists Renèe Helèna Browne and Zinzi Minott, premiering at the 16th edition of the festival this Autumn.

Renèe Helèna Browne’s Daddy’s Boy (2020) is a personal exploration of the influence of paternal lines on bodily experiences of gender. The film combines reflections on the contemporary legacy of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and a visual portrait of the artist’s father in an entangled, fragmentary account of inheritance and intimacy, monstrosity and family. The film has been commissioned by Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2020.

Renèe Helèna Browne is an Irish artist who makes vocal soundscapes, essay films, and angsty drawings. Browne focuses on schisms and transitions between language and the body. Browne is currently Research Associate with Centre of Contemporary Art Derry for 2020 and was Graduate Resident at Hospitalfield in 2019. They were selected for Platform, the emerging artist commission for the 2018 Edinburgh Art Festival and are a recent graduate of the Master of Fine Art programme at the Glasgow School of Art. They have upcoming solo exhibitions at Lunchtime, Glasgow (2020) and Intermedia, CCA Glasgow (2021). Browne is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

Fi Dem III (2020) is a newly commissioned film by Zinzi Minott. The film is produced and commissioned by Berwick Film & Media Arts FestivalSpike Island, Bristol and Transmission, Glasgow. In Zinzi’s own words, “Fi Dem is a durational work being performed now for three years. Each work is a filmic manifestation of a year lived, a body moved, and moving through a reflection on the legacy of The Windrush Generation.” Both Fi Dem I & II were screened as part of the festival’s 2018/19 programme. Fi Dem III will premiere at Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival followed by screenings at Spike Island and Transmission.

Zinzi Minott’s work focuses on the relationship between dance, bodies and politics. Zinzi explores how dance is perceived through the prisms of race, queer culture, gender and class. She is specifically interested in the place of Black women’s body within the form. As a dancer and filmmaker, she seeks to complicate the boundaries of dance seeing her live performance, filmic explorations and objects a different, but connected manifestations of dance and body based outcomes and enquiry. Zinzi is interested in ideas of broken narrative, disturbed lineage, and how the use of the glitch can help us to consider notions of racism one experiences through the span of a Black life. She is specifically interested in telling Caribbean stories and highlighting the histories of those enslaved and the resulting migration of the Windrush Generation. Minott’s current commissions and residences are with Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival, Spike Island, Transmission, 198 Gallery and Cubitt Gallery

Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation and a registered charity. Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival fundraises for all of the artistic programme and the majority of our cores costs through partnerships, trusts, foundations and donations. These contributions go directly to supporting all the artists, filmmakers, audiences and creative professionals we work with and allow us to ensure the Festival is as accessible as possible.

The 16th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival has been made possible with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from the National Lottery, Community Foundation serving Tyne & Wear and Northumberland, Northumberland County Council, Simpsons Malt, Berwick-upon-Tweed Town Council, and Newcastle University’s Institute for Creative Arts Practice.