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BEFORE LAW (2022)

Since 2014, Sharlene Bamboat & Mitchell have been building an expansive body of work and research around the legal trials of animals in Medieval Europe and by extension, its colonies. Central to this is the experimental film Bugs and Beasts Before the Law, as well as a series of print works, and an artistic publication co-commissioned by Mercer Union and Henry Art Gallery.
Framed as an appendix to the film, Before Law is a web-based artist project that features the work of more than a dozen contemporary artists, writers, poets and thinkers with wide-ranging, playful, and critical interests in the five organizing chapters of the film Bugs and Beasts Before the Law. A highlight among them, are six new projects produced with support from Bamboat & Mitchell by Canadian and international artists, writers, and filmmakers who broadly and incisively explore the complexity of human relationships with the greater natural world. In addition to these new works, are many others that have been expanded, adapted, and reimagined specifically for Before Law.
Framed as an appendix to the film, Before Law is a web-based artist project that features the work of more than a dozen contemporary artists, writers, poets and thinkers with wide-ranging, playful, and critical interests in the five organizing chapters of the film Bugs and Beasts Before the Law. A highlight among them, are six new projects produced with support from Bamboat & Mitchell by Canadian and international artists, writers, and filmmakers who broadly and incisively explore the complexity of human relationships with the greater natural world. In addition to these new works, are many others that have been expanded, adapted, and reimagined specifically for Before Law.
They include works of scholarship, and literary and artistic explorations that take up everything from the legal frameworks that implicate and control non-human subjects, through to historical and contemporary notions of ritual, myth, and conflict between worldly beings and ecologies. Before Law also includes a Screening Room that will feature a changing program of live events, screenings, and performances that are organized by Bamboat, Mitchell and invited guest programmers for a limited period of time.
With new works by Donika Kelly; Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, and Ryan Ferko; Sukaina Kubba; Shahana Rajani and Jeanne Penjan Lassus; Oliver Husain; and Zoe Todd. The project also features Renisa Mawani and Antoinette Burton; Renèe Helèna Browne; Ama Codjoe; Rupali Morazaria; Emilia Beatriz, ANORAK; Sarah Keenan; and more.
With new works by Donika Kelly; Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, and Ryan Ferko; Sukaina Kubba; Shahana Rajani and Jeanne Penjan Lassus; Oliver Husain; and Zoe Todd. The project also features Renisa Mawani and Antoinette Burton; Renèe Helèna Browne; Ama Codjoe; Rupali Morazaria; Emilia Beatriz, ANORAK; Sarah Keenan; and more.
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If From Every Tongue it Drips

If
From Every Tongue it Drips is a film that uses the framework of quantum physics to explore
the ways that personal relationships and political movements at once transcend
and challenge time, space, identity and location.
The film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, one of whom writes Rekhti, a form of 19th century, Urdu, queer poetry; the other, her lover, the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera, the lines between rehearsal and reality, location and distance, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another.
The film follows the lives of a couple living in Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, one of whom writes Rekhti, a form of 19th century, Urdu, queer poetry; the other, her lover, the camera operator. As their personal lives unfold on camera, the lines between rehearsal and reality, location and distance, self and other dissipate and reinforce one another.
Simultaneously, through
poet and camera operator’s daily lives, interconnections between British
colonialism, Indian nationalism and the impact of both on contemporary poetry,
dance and music in South Asia is revealed.
68 min, single-channel
Canada, Sri Lanka, Scotland
2021
68 min, single-channel
Canada, Sri Lanka, Scotland
2021


CREDITS
Director/Producer: Sharlene
Bamboat.
Performer: Ponni Arasu.
Camera Operator: Sarala Emmanuel.
Sound: Richy Carey.
Edit: Muhammed Nour Elkhairy.
Performer: Ponni Arasu.
Camera Operator: Sarala Emmanuel.
Sound: Richy Carey.
Edit: Muhammed Nour Elkhairy.



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Dolphins, Ships and other Vessels

In this performance reading, Bambitchell
continues their exploration of the legal frameworks that govern non-human
animals and objects, moving from the territorial jurisdictions explored in
their film Bugs & Beasts Before the Law (2019), to the legal realm of the
sea. Dolphins, ships and other vessels is a polyvocal narrative that spans
bodies of water. Stretching from Te Moana-o-Raukawa, to the South China Sea,
the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Clyde and Kaniatarowanenneh rivers,
the narrative traces the disappearance and reappearance of a dolphin, the
reincarnations of ships, and the embodiments of Jinn - as vessels, mammals,
water, myth, and law.
CREDITS
Performers: Faraz Anoushahpour & Sukaina KubbaSound Design: Richy Carey
COMMISSIONED BY
Henry Art GalleryPerformance Reading
Bambitchell, 2021





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Bugs and Beasts Before the Law



Bugs & Beasts before
the Law is an experimental film that explores the medieval practice of putting
animals on trial. This history of colonial law-making forged political and
sometimes profane relationships between humans and animals. Bambitchell's new
essayistic work reimagines common perceptions of legal history and, in doing
so, produces a world where past and present, fiction and non-fiction, human and
animal fuse.
33 min, Video
Installation.
Made in collaboration with Bambitchell & Richy Carey.
Canada-Germany-Scotland.
2019
Made in collaboration with Bambitchell & Richy Carey.
Canada-Germany-Scotland.
2019



Installation views, Mercer Union, 2019. Photos by
Toni Hafkenscheid.
CREDITS
Directors: Sharlene Bamboat & Alexis Mitchell
Sound Design & Music Composition: Richy Carey
Camera: Iris Ng
Editor: Alexis Mitchell
Voice: Sukaina Kubba
Production Manager: Paula Kohlmann
CO-PRODUCED
By Mercer Union and The Henry Art Gallery with production support from Akademie Schloss Solitude, MacDowell Colony, The Darling Foundry and Canada Council for the Arts.



Poster Design: Sameer Farooq.
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The Stammering Alphabet



Commissioned
to make a Super 8 film in celebration of the 18th anniversary of the Echo Park
Film Center in Los Angeles, Sharlene Bamboat and Terra Long each took a roll
and began a correspondence. Fragments of text, drawings, and divination
techniques were shared and translated into images. Chasing the ephemeral,
building a language of collaboration, The
Stammering Alphabet is a playful correspondence film.
Made
by Sharlene Bamboat & Terra Long. Original Music: Milja Viita
& Terra Long.
The Stammering Alphabet
2019, 8 min.
The Stammering Alphabet
2019, 8 min.
CREDITS
Sound: Richy Carey
Edit: Muhammed Nour Elkhairy