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Reman Sadani discusses Walkout 1 her commission for the Jerwood/FVU Awards 2020: Hindsight with curator, cultural strategist and Deputy Director of Delfina Foundation, Salma Tuqan.
This online event has been developed in collaboration with the artist and gives you a chance to hear from them and a special guest speaker; providing an insight into the ideas and processes behind the works in the exhibition.
Watch Walkout 1 in the online exhibition, here.
About the artist’s guest
Salma Tuqan is a Contemporary Art and Design curator and cultural strategist. She is Deputy Director at Delfina Foundation, a non-profit inter-disciplinary foundation dedicated to artistic exchange through global residencies, exhibitions, commissions and public programming. Prior to Delfina Foundation she held the inaugural role of Contemporary Middle East curator at the V&A where she helped shape programming and laid the foundation for its permanent Contemporary Arab art and design collection.
About the artist
Reman Sadani (b. 1995, Yemen) is a London-based Iraqi artist and a graduate of the Slade School of Fine Art. She is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on film and moving image. Her narratives are often driven by a search for an exit. The physical toll of this constant search manifests in space and performance as the negotiation between the individual and the collective plays out. Recent screenings and group exhibitions include: Independent Iraqi Film Festival, London (2020), Whole Nine Yards (2020), Soundings, Raven Row, London (2019), A Night of Shorts, SET, London (2018), No Screening, IMT Gallery, London (2015).
Reman Sadani’s Walkout 1, reflects how a preoccupation with the past could be considered a privilege when faced with the challenges of the present. Walkout 1 is set in a city that has been shrouded in dust, setting the film in a post-crisis, desert-like cityscape. The poetic film explores the flaws of a society’s single viewpoint, in particular how a dominant ideology can be forced upon a younger generation. In order to lift the cloud of dust, four young characters are instructed by an elder who rigidly adheres to a vision, leading to doubts and questions from her followers. The nature of crisis shows that it is often impossible to ‘look back’ and reflect because of a present, urgent need for survival. The film draws on Sadani’s own experiences of growing up in Arab countries and later moving to the UK. Various contributors were interviewed about their own ideas of the city, which sparked discussions of flawed systems of authority, collective frustrations and changing political narratives, all of which helped Walkout 1 take shape.
