The Aperture Foundation, the Vera List Center for Art and Politics, and the Photography program at Parsons The New School for Design present a special screening of The Forgotten Space, a film by Allan Sekula and Noël Burch. The evening concludes with a conversation with Sekula, scholar Kristin Ross and independent film curator Chi-hui Yang.

The Forgotten Space follows container cargo aboard ships, barges, trains and trucks; listening to workers, engineers, planners, politicians, and those marginalized by the global transport system. We visit displaced farmers and villagers in Holland and Belgium, underpaid truck drivers in Los Angeles, seafarers aboard mega-ships shuttling between Asia and Europe, and factory workers in China—whose low wages are the fragile key to the whole puzzle. In Bilbao, we discover the most sophisticated expression of the belief that the maritime economy, and the sea itself, are somehow obsolete.

A range of materials is used: descriptive documentary, interviews, archive stills and footage, and clips from old movies. The result is an essayistic, visual documentary about one of the most important processes that affects us today. The Forgotten Space is based on Sekula’s book Fish Story (1995), seeking to understand and describe the contemporary maritime world in relation to the complex, symbolic legacy of the sea.

With a title lifted from Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville’s film Here and Elsewhere (Ici et Ailleurs, 1976), this day of screenings presents contemporary and historical, documentary and fictional films to suggest correspondences in the contested land of Palestine/Israel. Curated by 2011-2013 Vera List Center Fellow Joshua Simon, the program proposes to view the conflict through the prism of “affinities” rather than “belonging” and “addition” rather than “opposition,” and does so in a mixed program of film screenings and conversations. It is presented as one of two programs to accompany the publication of United States of Palestine-Israel (in the Solution series by Sternberg Press, 2011), a book of speculative scenarios for the region, edited by Simon.

Reaching beyond geographical borders and instead focusing on the word “and,” the films present  fictional stories about run-down places in Jaffa (Copti and Boukhary); speculation on the future Jewish-Arab State (Rosen and Atia); visions of Israel in Uganda, proposed by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (when, at the beginning of Zionism, Uganda was considered for Jewish settlement); the landscapes of Jerusalem and the Dead Sea so familiar to both Palestinians and Israelis (Struggle in Jerash); and, finally, Godard’s reading of the history of this place through cinema, and a reading of cinema and history through this place (Ici et Ailleurs and Notre Musique).

Presented in collaboration with Artis–Contemporary Israeli Art Fund, and in conjunction with The New Museum’s Repurposing the Kibbutz, September 17,
3:00 p.m.

Program Schedule
• Screening I. Short-reverse-shot
11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.
Excerpts from Local Angel, Udi Aloni, dir. (Israel, 2002, 70 minutes)
The Jewish-Arab State, Yossi Atia and Itamar Rose, dir. (Israel, 2007, 4:30 minutes)
Notre Musique, Jean-Luc Godard, dir. (Switzerland & France, 2004, 80 minutes)
• Brunch
12:30 – 1:00 p.m.

• Screening II. Here And Elsewhere
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Ici et Ailleurs, Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville, dir. (France, 1976, 53 minutes)

• Conversation I
2:00 – 3:00 p.m.
Sam Ishii-Gonzales and Joshua Simon

• Screening III. The Uganda Proposal
3:00 – 4:30 p.m.
General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait, Barbet Schroeder, dir. (France & Switzerland, 1974, 90 minutes)

• Conversation II
4:30 – 5:30 p.m.
Udi Aloni, Reem Fadda, and Joshua Simon

• Screening IV. Affinities
5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Struggle in Jerash, Eileen Simpson and Ben White, dir. (Jordan, 2009, 63 minutes)
The Truth, Scandar Copti and Rabih Boukhary, dir. (Israel, 2003,15 minutes)

For more information, please download a detailed program, including film descriptions, here.

Friendship and hospitality frame a series of conversations this spring at the Vera List Center for Art and Politics in collaboration with the Bachelor’s Program at The New School for General Studies. Each evening features a faculty member from The New School who introduces their best friend—a prominent figure outside of The New School, and coming from a field different from the one of the host. Friendship and hospitality serve as more than framing devices: they are engaged in a variety of ways, and each pair is free to choose their approach in elaborating on the story of their friendship. The evening has a strong social element. The audience is invited to mix, eat, and drink—gestures of hospitality are extended to all present.

Participants Filmmaker Vladan Nikolic, Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Film and Media Studies, The New School, and Director and Producer (Surla Films), will host Eric Werthman, psychotherapist and director of Going Under (2004).