Associação Cultural Videobrasil

In a statement given to Channel VB on the opening week of the Festival’s latest edition, Cherri discusses his work, Pipe Dreams", war, violence and childhood.

Another Lebanese artist who combines political issues with his intimate universe and memories is Ali Cherri. War, political oppression, death and absence are recurring themes in his work, which he creates using different languages such as video and performance. Ali Cherri has appeared in three editions of the Festival’s Southern Panoramas competitive show (15th edition, in 2005; 17th edition, in 2011; and 18th edition, in 2013-14).

He won prizes at two of them: during the 15th Festival he presented Un Cercle Autour du Soleil, a reflection on fragility in Beirut as bombings increased, which earned him the FAAP Digital Arts Prize. In the latest edition of the Festival, Cherri featured Pipe Dreams and was awarded the Res Artis Residency prize, which he will begin to undertake in April this year at the A-I-R Laboratory, in Poland. In video installation Pipe Dreams (Quimeras), Cherri uses TV broadcasts of a conversation between a Syrian astronaut and the now-deceased president of the country to prompt reflection on how authoritarian regimes protect representations of their power. The piece will feature in the Festival’s On Tour programs in 2014 and 2015 – the first screenings have been confirmed and will take place at Sesc São Carlos and Sesc Campinas, between May and October this year.

In his statement to PLATFORM: VB, Ali Cherri explains the process of creating Pipe Dreams. From a newspaper report about the Syrian cosmonaut who he had never heard about, in 2010, until the beginning of the Syrian uprisal in 2011, the artist says that he started collecting Youtube footage. "I was interested in the images of the protestors versus the images produced by the regime. With Pipe Dreams, I put an official archival face to face with Youtube footage: this interface questions the authority of archival versus amateur images.

Cherri was recently awarded an artist-in-residence scholarship from the Sharjah Art Foundation, in the United Arab Emirates, and voted best short film director at the Dubai International Film Festival, for The Disquiet (2013). His works have featured at Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), the Delfina Foundation and Tate Modern (London) and at the HomeWorks (Beirut).

Access the POINT about Pipe Dreams on PLATFORM: VB to learn more about Ali Cherri's creative process and watch an interview with him to MoMA, where he talks about the relationship between documentary and subjectivity.
 

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