In the introduction to her book Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle, Katherine McKittrick describes the work of writer and poet Dionne Brand as “demonstrating that geography, the material world, is infused with sensations and distinct ways of knowing: rooms full of weeping, exhausted countries, a house that is only as safe as flesh.”
This program considers the distinct ways of knowing a place, and one’s place in it, that are inherited from or taught through mothering. When I speak of mothering here, I am invoking the words of Cynthia Dewi Oka who looks at mothering not as a biological function but as a social practice available to the spectrum of gendered bodies and their many relations. She writes:
Mothering as a revolutionary praxis involves exploring how we might reorganize ourselves to meet common needs in this historical moment, including the capacity to nurture whole, resilient individuals as well as autonomous communities of resistance. (1)
From the work of these three writers, questions begin to swirl: What might a matrilineage based on Cynthia’s definition of mothering look like? What ways of knowing might be revealed when thinking about matrilineages as geographic practice? When the mother is a place one can return to, what sensations might be speakable, maintained, inherited? And what happens when one cannot return to the place of mother, either as a child or as a mother themselves?
Filmmakers Zandashé Brown, Alger Liang, Xenia Matthews, Udval Altangerel, Karan Talwar and Chanelle Lajoie present a series of motherhoods that traverse spatial-temporal labyrinths and generously hold space for this line of questioning.
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DETAILS
A House That is Only as Safe as Flesh
Zandashé Brown, Alger Liang, Xenia Matthews, Udval Altangerel, Karan Talwar, Chanelle Lajoie
Curated by Jaclyn Quaresma
Benediction
Zandashé Brown
WORLD PREMIERE | USA | 2022 | DIGITAL | 20 MINENGLISH WITH SUBTITLES
Benediction explores the importance of being able to holdand acknowledge the sorrow that lives inside of us. And thebeauty and terror that comes with emotional release. This story serves as a reminder that healing asks that we be boldenough to dive into the depths of ourselves.
motherland 母懷之地
Alger Ji-Liang
TORONTO PREMIERE | CANADA | 2021 | DIGITAL | 13 MINENGLISH AND CANTONESE WITH SUBTITLES
motherland 母懷之地 is an experimental film that followsa grieving boy who moves across the liminal spaces of hismemory to remember someone he’s lost. Through this act,he must confront the tension and trauma within his body tofind solace.
OURIKA!
Xenia Matthews
CANADIAN PREMIERE | USA | 2022 | DIGITAL | 19 MINENGLISH, FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
The long-dead Ourika, a Senegalese girl enslaved by aFrench aristocrat, is awoken in the eerie space between lifeand death, between body and soul, where she finds her wayback to life and into liberation.
The Wind Carries Us Home
Udval Altangerel
CANADIAN PREMIERE | MONGOLIA/USA | 2022 | DIGITAL | 11 MIN MONGOLIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
Through rituals of birth and death, the filmmaker and herfamily reconnect with their ancestral land in the Gobi Desert.
Sarson ka Saag (Mustard Greens)
Karan Suri Talwar
CANADIAN PREMIERE | INDIA | 2022 | 16 MM > DIGITAL | 9 MIN HINDI WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES
A mother guides her son through making a popular Punjabidelicacy called Sarson ka Saag. He imitates his mother’smovements, attempting to inherit broken pieces of a partitionedculture. Shot on black and white 16mm, the film usesmustard and spices in its developing process, forming agastronomical archive.
Grand Mother Tongue
Chanelle Lajoie
TORONTO PREMIERE | CANADA | 2021 | DIGITAL | 3 MIN ENGLISH AND CREE WITH SUBTITLES
Grand Mother Tongue pairs poetry, spoken in Plains Cree,and breath with the intimate imagery of strawberries beingconsumed bite by bite, finger lick by finger lick. These storieswork to build a foundation of queer desire, heart medicine,and language revitalization.
PRICING
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