We would like to invite you to ‘Artistic Play in the Archive’ by Jyoti Mistry (Artist in Residence) & Mark Paul Meyer (senior curator of EYE). 

In this public discussion Mark Paul Meyer and Jyoti Mistry reflect on the meaning of “old films” from the EYE film archive and its reinterpretation by visual artists.  The discussion draws from Mistry’s work When I grow up I want to be a black man as a starting point to consider how images from colonial history might be decolonised and reimagined. Meyer and Mistry will discuss archives as space of exploration that invites artists to bring new perspectives and reinterpretation to historical footage. It revitalises the archive's presence and makes old films relevant to contemporary histories and politics.

The conversation will take place on Tuesday 27 June, 20.00 - 21.30 in EYE (Room at the Top). 

Please register here for this special event during the Artistic Research Week.

‘When I grow up I want to be a black man’
Multimedia installation, from 23 June until 10 July 

A black man runs through a field.
A black man runs on the beach.
A black man runs through a city.
The black man in always running, he is always chased, he is always running…
Running to save his life.

This diptych uses archival footage from the EYE Film Museum and the GDR Film Der kleine Kuno (1959) to create two narratives. The narrative of the colonial past is framed through the alphabet of violence which is contrasted with the alphabet of freedom. Using cinematic strategies with newly filmed footage, the two screens create an opportunity to reflect on how images might be “decolonised”  to imagine a future in which black masculinity might be redefined.

Jyoti Mistry has created the installation When I grow up I want to be a black man as part of her Artist in Residency at the Netherlands Film Academy and the Master of Artistic Research in and through Cinema.