‘Sunless Haven’ Opening night film at Open City Documentary Festival 2024

Open City Documentary Festival
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
24 April 2024

Sunless Haven had its world premiere as the opening night film at the Open City Documentary Festival 2024.

George Clark worked with historians Simeon Koole and Ben Mechen, sound artist Jol Thoms and performance artist Yarli Allison to imagine the experiences in, around and through the London Docklands at the turn of the 20th century. “Woven into the film are attempts to understand the docklands as a meeting place between different ecologies, enclosures and epochs, as a point of entanglement of the city and world. The film looks at ways to describe and embody these enmeshed histories from the legacy of police persecution of seaman boarding houses and Indian dockworkers known as lascars to the traces of early Chinatown in Limehouse and the experiences of London by Ayahs and Amahs, predominantly Chinese or Indian nannies brought back from the colonies and abandoned in the city after the voyage.” (George Clark) 
 
The premiere of Sunless Haven (George Clark, 2024) will be accompanied with a selection of 35mm reels from Clark’s ongoing project Eyemo Rolls – an expanding constellation of over 200 films shot in camera since 2011 – and works by other artists. Evoking the concept of “Flowing Water Parallelisms” in Chinese poetry, this special screening curated by George Clark draws together works connected to ideas of water and liquid bodies as way to think about worlds within worlds at various border and transient zones. 

Followed by a conversation with George Clark, Simeon Koole and May Adadol Ingawanij.

Opening Night: Sunless Haven, Open City Documentary Film Festival
Discussion with George Clark and Simeon Koole chaired by May Adadol Ingawanij, ICA, Open City Documentary Festival 2024

The programme featured the following works including new 35mm reels from the ongoing Eyemo Rolls project.

Eyemo Roll #86 (Taiwan projectionist)
George Clark / April 2016 / Taiwan, UK / 2′ / 35mm / silent

Eyemo Roll # 230-233 (Hokkaido)
George Clark / April 2023 / UK, Japan / 3′ / 35mm / silent

Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification
Barbara McCullough / 1979 / USA / 6′ / 35mm / sound

Eyemo Rolls #57-60 (Los Angeles)
George Clark / August 2014 / UK, USA / 4′ / 35mm / silent

Eyemo Rolls #16-17 & #74-75 (Hong Kong)
George Clark / Jan 2012, February 2016 / UK, Hong Kong / 5′ / 35mm / silent

Black landscape #6
Nguyen Thi Thanh Mai / 2018-20 / Vietnam / 8′  / digital / sound

Eyemo Rolls #81-84 (Lake Taal, Philippines)
George Clark / February 2016 / 35mm / 5′ / silent

Sunless Haven
George Clark / 2024 / UK / 32′ / digital / Mandarin and English spoken

Following the screening historian Dr. Simeon Koole led the Within Worlds Docklands Walk on Sunday 28 April.. In conversation with the film Sunless Haven, Koole takes us to the remaining traces of the seamen’s lodging houses, wharves, water stairs, “strangers’ homes” for Asian sailors, and streets of London’s first Chinatown. Along the way, we’ll ask: how were the bodies and senses of docklands inhabitants shaped by global connections – and how has this changed today?

Within Worlds Docklands Walk led by Dr. Simeon Koole, 28 April 2024

2017 – ‘A Peculiar Apparatus: Spectres of The Penal Colony’ (In: ARKIPEL Penal Colony, 5th Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival, 2017)

‘A Peculiar Apparatus: Spectres of The Penal Colony’ 
By George Clark, pp125-134 (Dual language in English and Bahasa)
In: ARKIPEL Penal Colony – 5th Jakarta International Documentary and Experimental Film Festival
Ed. Manshur Zikri, Forum Lentang, Indonesia 2017

2013-16 – Tate Film booklets

Selected Tate Film books edited by George Clark:

Throwing Shadows: Japanese Expanded Cinema in the Time of Pop
Tate Modern, January 2016
Curated with Go Hirasawa and Julian Ross.



Chick Strand: Soft Fictions

Tate Modern, November 2015

2015-FLM-TM-0047-Chick-Strand_v8


Embeddedness: Artist Films and Videos from Korea 1960s to Now
Tate Modern, Sept 2015
The first survey in the UK of Korean artists’ films and videos from 1960s until now with guest artists Kim Ku-lim and Im Huang-Soon.
Curated with Hangjun Lee and Hyun Jin Cho.

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L.A. Rebellion: Creating a New Black Cinema

Tate Modern, 10–25 April 2015
The month long season provided the most comprehensive survey of filmmakers and artists who pioneered counter-cultural and community-based approaches to filmmaking from the 1960s to the 1990s.

2015-LA_Rebellion_-_Creating_a_New_Black_Cinema


Albert Serra: Divine Visionaries and Holy Fools
Tate Modern, March 2015
The first major survey in the UK of maverick Catalan filmmaker Albert Serra, curated with Andrea Lissoni.

Luis Ospina and Grupo de Cali
Tate Modern, December 2014

Vlado Kristl: Death to the Audience
Tate Modern, November 2014
The most extensive presentation of the work of Vlado Kristl (1923–2004) in the UK, a comprehensive retrospective of films and accompanying exhibition display of artists’ books, poetry anthologies and exhibition catalogues spanning 1969–2003.

2014_VladoKristl_booklet_update


TV As Material
Tate Modern, September 2014

2014-TV_as_Material_programme_singlepage

Open Form: Oskar Hansen, Art, Architecture and Film
Tate Modern, 2014
Curated with Łukasz Mojsak, and Kasia Redzisz

Magiciens de la Terre: Reconsidered
Tate Modern, April 2014
Marking the 25th anniversary of the controversial Pompidou exhibition, this weekend of screenings and talks revisits and expands on the exhibition’s pioneering film programme includes works by David Byrne, Maya Deren, Len Lye, Chris Marker, Claes Oldenburg, Alain Resnais, Jean Rouch and Dziga Vertov. Curated with Lucy Steeds

2014-Magiciens_de_la_Terre


Camille Henrot: Grosse Fatigue
Tate Modern, February 2014

To Be Here: The Films of Ute Aurand
Tate Modern, February 2014

Under the Sun: The Films of Rose Lowder
Tate Modern, January 2014
Curated with Anat Pick


Mike Kuchar: Film Follies and Digital Daydreams
Tate Modern, November 2013
Comprehensive retrospective of Mike Kuchar’s work spanning 50 years of work from 1963 presented with the artist.

Assembly: A Survey of Recent Artists Film and Video in Britain 2008–2013
Tate Britain, November 2013 – March 2014
Featuring work by over 80 artists across 20 events including three evenings of expanded cinema works. Curated with Melissa Blanchflower, Stuart Comer, Simon Payne and Andrew Vallance.