Screening & in-conversation with Village, MACK & Karanjit Panesar.

Village & HPPH are pleased to present a special screening and in-conversation with artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers – to mark the recent launch of Rivers’ Urthworks, published by MACK.

Adapted from Rivers’ Urthworks film trilogy, Urthworks takes the form of a visual novel set on a future planet, imagined across three distinct stages following environmental collapse. Interwoven with texts by acclaimed science fiction writer Mark von Schlegell, Urthworks merges speculative storytelling with visual experimentation.]

The evening will include a screening of two Ben Rivers’ films – Slow Action (2010) and Urth (2016) – followed by an in-conversation between Rivers and Leeds-based artist Karanjit Panesar.

Village will be at the cinema with copies of Urthworks, with a book-signing taking place after the event. More details about the book can be found here 

TIMINGS

18:00: Doors

18:20: Intro

18:25: Film screening: Slow Action (2010) & Urth (2016)

19:30: Conversation + Q&A

20:00: Book-signing in foyer

FILM DETAILS

Slow Action (2010, 45mins)

A post-apocalyptic sci-fi work that blends documentary, ethnography, and fiction. Set on Earth in the distant future, where new islands and archipelagos have been formed after catastrophic sea-level rise, it re-imagines the remnants of civilization.

Urth (2016, 19 mins)

A reflection on isolation, sustainability, and human ambition, inspired by the experimental ecological project Biosphere 2.

ARTIST DETAILS

Ben Rivers was born in Somerset, UK in 1972 and lives and works in London. Rivers’ films are typically intimate portrayals of solitary beings or isolated communities; his practice as a filmmaker treads a line between documentary and fiction. Rivers uses these themes as a starting point from which to imagine alternative narratives and existences in marginal worlds.

Karanjit Panesar (born 1992) is an artist living and working in Leeds. In his practice, oblique explorations of diasporic identity and histories of empire intersect with a structural concern. Often starting from moving image, he constructs stylised and layered installations that contain sculpture and other media. Environments, ideas and objects spill into and out of the space of the screen; artworks are in some way incomplete, asked to be more than one thing at once.