Nuclear Hallucinations

Presented as a part of Creative Time Summit
30 September 2017 at 11:00am
Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), Weston Family Learning Center, Rm 19

Screening: Nuclear Hallucinations
Saturday, September 30, 11:00 AM – AGO, Weston Family Learning Center, Rm 19

Nuclear Hallucinations (India/UK 2016) is a film by Fathima Nizaruddin, which claims to be a documentary and is centered around the anti-nuclear struggle against the Kudankulam Atomic Power Project in South India. The film questions the totalitarian nature of pro-nuclear assertions through comic modes. Satirical impersonations, performance and ironic renderings of jingoistic rhetoric work together to form a narrative that explores the tragic absurdity of constructing nuclear power plants on a tsunami affected coast.

Fathima Nizaruddin is an alumnus of AJK Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia, and Goldsmiths, University of London. Her films have been screened at various international film festivals including Punto de Vista, Spain, Filmmor Women’s Film Festival, Turkey and Bracelona International Women’s Film Festival, Film South Asia and Uranium Film Festival, Berlin. She is a recipient of the National Geographic’s All Roads Seed Grant and Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT)’s Film Fellowship. Nuclear Hallucinations emerged out of her practice based PhD project at University of Westminster, London. Fathima works as an Assistant Professor at Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi. Her research interests include embodied communication, mobile media, bhakti publics, right- wing circulations and  documentary film. Her articles have been published in BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies and Dastavezi: The Audio-Visual South Asia.

Panel Discussion – Unprogrammability: A Discussion on the Ethics and Aesthetics of Working Out of Context 
Saturday, September 30, 1.30PM. –AGO- Weston Family Learning Center, RM 19

Using the film screening of Nuclear Hallucinations as a foundation for the conversation, Indu Vashist converses with Amy Fung and Sharlene Bamboat about the politics, aesthetics and ethics of what makes a work programmable. Facilitators will navigate the challenges of curating works outside of their original contexts, speaking to ideas of censorship, translation and accessibility.

• Indu Vashist is the Executive Director of SAVAC.
• Amy Fung is a writer, researcher and curator currently based in Toronto, Canada, with a specialization in criticism, poetics, and the moving image.
• Sharlene Bamboat is a multidisciplinary artist working predominantly in moving image installation. She has exhibited internationally at Les Complices* (Zurich), the Images Festival (Toronto), The Art Gallery of Windsor (Ontario), and Vasakh Film Festival (Lahore).