Breathing Solidarity

#19

Breathing Solidarity

Screening
Fri, 01.02.2019 19:3021:30
HKW - Lecture Hall
Passes and Single Tickets

Liza Johnson’s film In the Air ends with an acrobatic choreography involving people whose lives have been scarred by long-term economic decline. The soundtrack to this powerfully optimistic scene is the dance hit Better Off Alone by Alice DeeJay from 1998. In view of the song’s reception—as Lauren Berlant explains in her analysis of In the Air—the central line “Do you think you’re better off alone?” can be interpreted as an expression of the political desire to transform the rhetorical into an actual question; into a solidary practice based on mindfulness, respect, and, eventually, fun. From a you to an I to a we: the question of who and what this “we” includes—and whether it can bear deviation and difference—is an ongoing challenge for both grown and spontaneous communities formed out of protest and resistance. Through the interplay of In the Air, and films by Sky Hopinka, Maha Maamoun, and Lobo Mauro, the program addresses the relationship between individual and collective concerns against the backdrop of societies increasingly shaped by media populism and authoritarianism.

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