$5 students | $10 general | SAVAC members free

Featuring works by:

Shambhavi Kaul (India/USA)

Bee Thiam (Singapore)

Anahita Norouzi (Iran/Canada)

The Youngrrr (Indonesia)

Priya Sen (India)

WALA + Kush (India)

Curated by Shai Heredia

Melodrama is often used pejoratively to insinuate a lack of nuance or subtlety.

Monitor 10 turns this notion on its head. Foregrounding overwrought characters like seductive mothers, political villains, and campy sci fi/horror sets that seem to take on a life of their own, these videos engage with the politics of drama; linking the personal act to the political realm. From found footage to performance video, reality television to observational documentary, the works in Monitor 10 engage various forms of melodrama to produce wry, highly entertaining and complex political commentaries.

Program Highlights

In Anahita Norouzi's performance documentation, "Tehran, the Apocalypse", the artist performs the ritual killing of a goat set amidst the backdrop of Tehran. Her work speaks to her complicated relationship to violence, and raises critical questions about the dual role of an artist, as both 'participant' and 'provocateur'.

Indonesian duo, The Youngrrr's "Another Colour TV" depicts the economic and cultural conditions of a suburban family in Indonesia, through the escapist tendencies and desires of the matriarch. The melodrama of the everyday unfolds, as the crisis of her domestic reality becomes visible.

Delhi-based collective, WALA + Kush's We in a One Room Kitchen Field 0.75 produces and relays a series of conversations taking place between collective members. Developed over the course of 9 months, W1RKF engages with the melodrama of historical narratives of the city employing locations such as a river bed of trash, a reclaimed fort, a rooftop of an apartment block, a launch of a political party and the site of Delhi's announcement as capital on the city's birthday.

About Monitor

For the last decade, SAVAC's (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) annual experimental film and video program, Monitor: South Asian Experimental Film + Video, has carved out a unique place in Canada. It has held a steady engagement with an international community of artists, curators and critics, and has initiated dialogues around the shifting nature of South Asian politics, economies and landscape through artists' film and video.