A film is made in the mind of the viewer at the moment of its screening, as much as it is produced by its team of creators. Of course this might be banal and apply to all other art forms as well, but Im fascinated how this paradox manifests itself on the screen, and can be localized there. The two kinds of projections, a mechanical beam of light and the self-projection of the viewer, are thrown onto the screen simultaneously; my recent films and videos have been interested in this peculiar meeting point, and how a screen can take on qualities of a window, a stage, a mirror, or a filter to view the world. The title of the program hints at my status in Canada in the years those works were produced. Oliver Husain

Programme:

Parade, 2013 video, 11 min.

Item Number, 2012, video, 16 min.

Green Dolphin, 2008, video, 15 min.

Mount Shasta, 2008, 16mm, 8 min.

Rushes for Five Hats, 16mm with performance, 12 min.

Dear Whats Your Face, video with live voice over, 6 min.

Moth Maze, 2012, video, 6.30 min.

Hovering Proxies, 2010, 16mm on video, 4 min.

The program corresponds to two exhibitions:

Beside the point at Susan Hobbs Gallery, January 15 February 21, 2015

Depth of Perception Oakville Galleries, January 18 March 15, 2015

BIO:

Oliver Husain is a filmmaker and artist based in Toronto. I often begin with a portrait of a person or place. The outcome is a video or film, a text or a textile; something foldable that can be stored away easily, or something standing on thin chopstick legs. Something that might collapse under the eyes of the viewer in a film, this could be its fragile narrative structure. The viewers are left with holding up their side by themselves. In this way, I am constructing attractive traps.

His experimental short films and videos have been shown at numerous international film festivals, including Toronto International Film Festival; London Film Festival; Experimenta India, Bangalore; Mar del Plata International Film Festival and Rotterdam Film Festival. In 2003, Husains video Q was awarded with the National Award from the Government of Germany. In 2008, he was a featured filmmaker at the Flaherty Film Seminar in Colgate, New York. His film Item Number won the award for Best German Film at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 2012. Husains installations and expanded cinema performances have been exhibited at many galleries, including the Art Gallery of York University, Toronto; Galeri Nasional, Jakarta; Greene Naftali Gallery, New York City; ICA Philadelphia; Frankfurter Kunstverein and Fridericianum, Kassel. After completing his MFA in film and media art at Hochschule fr Gestaltung, Offenbach, Germany in 1998, Husain was founding member of two collectives: the theatre troupe Da Group 1999 ongoing, which staged elaborate installations and musical and theatrical performances; and the award-winning music video production Husain / Klfkorn 1996 2002. A book on his work, Oliver Husain; Spoiler Alert, was published in 2012 by Art Gallery of York University. www.husain.de