On Restoring

Maeve Brennan and Ektoras Arkomanis will discuss restorative practices and ideas in their work, involving the recording of actual, material restorations on film, but also using film.

Maeve Brennan and Ektoras Arkomanis will reflect on the theme of migration in their films about Jerusalem and Athens. Drawing on their recent contributions to the book Migrations in New Cinema (London: Cours de Poétique, 2019) they will discuss ‘migrations’ as a trope – a state of mind, a process or a way of seeing, the unfolding of a poetic through a filmmaker/writer’s own journeys, or as found in a subject, whether in literal manifestations or in metaphorical readings.

Maeve Brennan is an artist based in London, working with moving image and installation. Her practice explores the political and historical resonance of material and place. Recent solo exhibitions include Listening in the Dark, Wäinö Aaltonen Museum of Art, Finland (2019); The Goods, KUB Billboards at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria (2018); The Drift, Chisenhale Gallery, London; The Drift, Spike Island, Bristol, The Drift, The Whitworth, University of Manchester (all 2017) and Jerusalem Pink, OUTPOST, Norwich (2016). Her films have been screened internationally at festivals including FILMADRID, Sheffield Doc Fest and International Film Festival Rotterdam, where she was shortlisted for the Tiger Shorts Award 2018. Brennan was educated at Goldsmiths, University of London and was a fellow of the Home Workspace Program at Ashkal Alwan in Beirut (2013-14). She was awarded the Jerwood/FVU Award 2018 and is the Stanley Picker Fine Art Fellow 2019.

Ektoras Arkomanis is a filmmaker and a senior lecturer in architectural history and theory at The Sir John Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University. His research revolves around urban areas which remain in the margins of history, planning and the city’s conscience. He uses film for its capacity to preserve and explore, but is ultimately interested in what it omits and its inadequacy in describing things that are no longer there. He is currently editing his second feature film, A Season in the Olive Grove, a documentary about the area of Eleonas in Athens.

The two 20-minute presentations will be followed by a chaired discussion between the presenters and the audience, with the objective of peer review and helping the presenters push their research forward.

Image: Maeve Brennan, Jerusalem Pink (2015)