’15th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival,’ Vera Mey, Art Monthly 432, December 2019 – January 2020
“..the festival incorporated a different kind of crossing-over of boundaries, one which allowed for the less restricted possibility of spirit worlds. The programme evoked the intersection between our human sense of sight and invisibility, informed by theories of animism – the belief that all phenomena have the potential to have a soul.
These included a more esoteric Southeast Asian anarchist pulse in the curatorial project ‘Animistic Apparatus’ by May Adadol Ingawanij with Julian Ross. The exhibition drew on a Thai ritual practice where offerings are made to spirits, often in the from of food, theatre or, here, projectionist cinema. With many artworks and installations presented in outdoor locations, often one would walk the empty streets of Berwick, as if perhaps in Bangkok, happening upon outdoor cinemas largely empty of audience. This ghostly quality was resonant in Ingawanij and Ross’s project, which felt symptomatic of our attention-deficit era – who has the time to see and experience filmic works? Berwick’ programme, however, drives a complex reversion of long-form cinema’s demands on the viewer-one that keeps playing regardless of your attention or, indeed, your presence.”
