Actors, Agents and Attendants II: Film Programme

The symposium emphasizes the relationship between the waning political and practical imperative of social housing and the broader conceptual or philosophical idea of housing the social. Recently, an unprecedented number of films, documentaries and art videos have been made around the more than ever pressing issues of social housing, gentrification and urban renewal. This film programme aims to move beyond the issue of social housing into the more challenging and new concept of housing the social, serving as a platform to introduce the main topics and questions that are raised during the symposium on November 4 and 5, 2011 in Felix Meritis, Amsterdam.

The screening events are spread out over the four wings of the city: Open Coop in the North, De Nieuwe Anita in the West, Delicatessen Zeeburg in the East and Kriterion in the Center.

During the last thirty years, an unprecedented number of films, documentaries and video arts have been made around the more than ever pressing issues of social housing, gentrification and urban renewal. The film programme of the symposium Actors, Agents and Attendants: Social Housing - Housing the Social presents canonical works around these issues side by side with more recent films. By doing so, the series of screenings that take place during the month of October is aimed at illustrating the topic of social housing and its issues, but also bringing to the surface old and new notions concerning the link between socialization and housing. In other words, this series of screenings aims to move beyond the issue of social housing into the more challenging and new concept of housing the social, serving as a platform to introduce the main topics and questions that are raised during the symposium.

So how are we housing the social? In order to offer a variety of answers to this question, all four screenings which are part of this film programme focuses on the issue from a personal perspective. From the elderly man who is being evicted from his home in Frederick Wiseman's Public Housing to the young architect who decides to build her own  innovative community in Bregtje van der Haak's California Dreaming, all the chosen works are about people and the ways the issue of housing changed their lives. Interestingly, most of the more recent works explore the relationship between socialization and housing through  rethinking the concept of community, or better, communities. It seems that people from different places and backgrounds are finding ways to come together in various forms. Artists, as the screening of Jan Tichy's new project shows, play an influential role in this exciting process.

The importance of gathering under one roof is manifested in the films and art works, and also in the venues where the screenings take place. This year, every screening event is hosted by different alternative cultural spaces in the city of Amsterdam. The venues are spread out over the four wings of the city: Open Coop in the north, New Anita in the west, Delicatessen in the east and Kriterion in the centre. The act of collaboration with different groups from different parts of the city aims to bring together people and to incorporate the discussed issues within the cultural happenings in Amsterdam.

Friday October 14, 2011 at 8:30 PM

Session 1: Lost Communities
Film: Public Housing by Frederick Wiseman (USA, 1997; Released 1999), 200 min.
Venue: Open Coop
Free admission

This legendary film documents daily life at the Ida B. Wells public housing development in Chicago. The film illustrates some of the experiences of people living in conditions of extreme poverty. It raises many of the issues that are usually related to discussions on public housing: encounters between the inhabitants and the authorities, isolation, crime and resourcefulness.

Thursday October 20, 2011 at 8:30 PM

Session 2: Getting Together
Film: Together by Lukas Moodysson (Sweden, 2000), 106 min.
Venue: De Nieuwe Anita
Free admission

Moodysson's film brings the story of life in a commune outside Stockholm in the year 1975. All the well know difficulties of communal living are exhibited in this sharp and witty movie, alongside with moments of joy and happiness. The film allows us to rethink the idea of communal life as it was, and draw our own conclusions about the present.

Wednesday October 26, 2011 at 8:30 PM

Session 3: Gentrification
Film: Flag Wars by Linda Goode Bryant & Laura Poitras (USA, 2003), 86 min.
Video art work: Look Out! by Johanna Billing (UK), Prod. Milch (London, 2003)
Venue: Delicatessen Zeeburg
Free admission

Flag Wars is a stark look upon the conflicts that surfaced when the black working-class families in the suburbs of Columbus Ohio were faced with an influx of white gay homebuyers in their neighborhood. Filmed over four years, Flag Wars' "as-it-is-happening" style captures the raw emotions and blunt honesty of unguarded moments as tensions mount between neighbors.

Johanna Billing's work, Look Out! records a situation in which an estate agent shows a group of young adults new living units. Billing reflects the tension between run-down social housing projects and  new, sterile and luxury apartments. By doing it exhibits the inner contrast between young individuals today and the responsibilities that we all have as members of society. The work was shot in what used to be the famous Gainsborough Studios in east London.

Saturday October 29, 2011 at 3 PM

Session 4: New Communities
Film: California Dreaming by Bregtje van der Haak (the Netherlands, 2010), 49 min.
Video art: Project Cabrini Green by Jan Tichy (CZ, 2011), presentation and screening, 10 min.
Venue: Kriterion
Admission: € 6,50

California Dreaming follows a number of people who have been directly affected by the American economic crisis. While some of the stories show the struggle to survive under the new precarious conditions of life, others bring optimism into the American dream by exhibiting different forms of socialization and alternative living.

Project Cabrini Green is a community-based art project and light installation, where Tichy and his students lit up a neighborhood building which was about to be demolished. The light installation was visible in the evenings during the four-week demolition period. As the building was demolished, the lights went down, along with the building.
 

Actors, Agents and Attendants is a series of symposia initiated by SKOR | Foundation for Art and Public Domain.