In a series of specialized walkabouts, the Centre for the Moving Image at Zeitz MOCAA will delve deeper into Penny Siopis’ exhibition, This is a True Story: Six Films (1997-2017), a retrospective of twenty years of filmmaking by the artist.
Over the course of a month (21 March – 11 April 2018), these weekly walkabouts will explore the multi-layered elements of Siopis’ films every Wednesdays at 3 – 4 pm.
This is a True Story: In Other Words is the fourth walkabout in the series, with Alexandra Dodd. She will explore the role of text in the films of Penny Siopis. With reference to subtitles, intertitles, diary entries, private messages and WhatsApp texts, we’ll think through the intimate and collective associations woven into her moody montage narratives. What is withheld? What is not said? Drawing on Svetlana Boym’s notion of critical nostalgia, we’ll look at the counter-archival strategies at work in Siopis’ films and how rhythms of consonance and dissonance between image and text contribute to the construction of particular kinds of meaning.
About Alexandra Dodd:
Alexandra Dodd is an independent writer and editor energized by the interface between visual and literary cultures. She holds a Master of Arts from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, and a PhD in Literature from the University of Cape Town. She has edited numerous novels, reported for newspapers and magazines, and contributed essays to journals and art books. Her interests include museums and archives, non-fiction and fabulation, memoir and the retrieval of lost histories, future ecologies and interspecies communication.
This event is free but RSVP is required. Please email michaela.limberis@zeitzmoc
Meet at the AfriSam Audio Tours desk, near reception.
This event has been organised by Michaela Limberis, the Wendy Fisher Assistant Curator of the Centre for the Moving Image and Precious Mhone, the Torben Wind Assistant Curator for the Centre of the Moving Image.