LI-MA Presents: A Grain of Sand in the Mountain’s Belly. A Collaboration with ReCNTR X ArteEast.
With works by Jumana Emil Abboud, Marie-Rose Osta, Basim Magdy, Giovanni Giaretta and Anika Schwarzlose & Brian D McKenna
Curated by Nat Muller. Presented in collaboration with ReCNTR x ArteEast.

Tuesday, 28 March, 2023 at LAB111, Amsterdam (LAB2)
Programme: 20:00
Price: 7,50 euros // students 5,00 euros // Cineville
Tickets available by clicking here

For this screening programme on Tuesday, 28 March, LI-MA teams up with ReCNTR x ArteEast. The programme revolves around the weird, dark, supernatural, and fantastical, and presents works from the ArteEast archive and network, as well as the LI-MA collection. It looks at how these — often underexplored — modes of the strange narrate complex historical, geo-political and socio-cultural realities, while opening an imaginary world of speculation and possibility. Through the enchanted otherworldliness of the spirit world, expanding universes, understated dread, and the coming to life of that what should remain petrified, these films not only mash up conceptions of time and space, but also blur the boundaries between human and nonhuman, life and nonlife. 

The works in the programme travel through colonial pasts, extractivist presents, and improbable futures, rendering time and geography fluid and haunted. Landscapes, in the form of forests and waterways, deserts and mountains, become animate. While there is always a suggestion of looming catastrophe and implied violence lurking underneath, there is also an immense sense of potential. A grain of sand slumbers in the mountain’s belly, patiently waiting to transform into something else. 

Jumana Emil Abboud, Giovanni Giaretta and Anika Schwarzlose & Brian D McKenna will be present for a Q&A after the screening.

A Grain of Sand in the Mountain’s Belly is co-presented by ArteEast, LI-MA and ReCNTR. This screening is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents nearly 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. Part 1 of this program is screened online on artearchive.org from 23 March - 2 April 2023. Part 2 is screened online on artearchive.org from 13 - 23 April 2023. A selection of films from the program will be screened in-person at LI-MA/LAB111 in Amsterdam on 28 March at 20.00 CET, followed by a post-screening discussion. A Work-in progress presentation with artist Jumana Emil Abboud will be hosted by ReCNTR on 29 March, 13.00 - 15.00 CET at Leiden University.