"These Monsters are Real"

How does trauma haunt us? How do we build fictions that tell the stories of our lived realities? And finally, how do we fantasize our way out?

The title of a 7” record by riot grrrl band Heavens to Betsy, “These Monsters are Real” conjures feelings of anxiety, fear, and panic. While the reference to monsters elicits the realm of fiction and fantasy, the insistence on their realness re-centers experiences of horror and trauma, summoning images of mutated and abject beings.

Monitor 11 takes this title as its starting point and asks that we claim a space for the imaginary and the make-believe that can emerge from and entangle with the most monstrous acts, which have become a part of our everyday reality.

Curated by Azar Mahmoudian & Leila Pourtavaf

Featuring works by

Sahej Rahal (India)

Kush Badhwar (India)

Tala Madani (Iran/USA)

Payal Kapadia (India)

Anjana Kothamachu (India)

Mahardika Yudha (Indonesia)

Chulayarnnon Siriphol (Thailand)

Laleh Khorramian (USA).

$10 general admission

$5 students. seniors and underemployed

SAVAC members free

About Monitor

For over a decade, Monitor: South Asian Experimental Film + Video has held a steady engagement with an international community of artists, curators, and critics, initiating dialogues around the shifting nature of South Asian politics, economies, and landscape through artists’ film and video.

Presented by SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre)

SAVAC (South Asian Visual Arts Centre) is the only non-profit, artist-run centre in Canada dedicated to supporting South Asian artists. Our mission is to produce programs that critically explore issues and ideas shaping the identities and experiences of people from the region and its diasporas. We encourage work that is challenging, experimental, and engaged in critical discussions that offer new perspectives on the contemporary world.

www.savac.net