The screening and discussion of Communion by poet, philosopher, and artist Keti Chukhrov, based on her 2009 poem of the same name, opens the program Garage Screen. The New, devoted to the dialogue between film, contemporary art, and performative practices.
At the center of this story is an encounter between a migrant worker and two representatives of the cultural elite (one played by the author herself) who like to talk about spirituality, which they believe they possess. All characters sing their lines like a liturgy: Nita, the rich owner of the flat that Dia is renovating, is ostentatiously religious, and faith is what initially promises a possibility of connection and understanding between the two women. This promise, however, soon turns into contempt and a claim for moral and intellectual superiority.
Exploring the possibility of solidarity and understanding between people of different social and cultural backgrounds, the work combines elements of film, theatre, poetry, and music and investigates the question of ‘the common’ in the context of contemporary culture characterised by the rise of religiousness (including among the elites), spirituality and its ceremonial aspects. Communion offers little hope, showing that spirituality does not help against xenophobia, nor solve the social, economic, or ideological problems we are facing.
The screening will be followed by a discussion with Keti Chukhrov; curator and critic Ekaterina Degot; art theorist Boris Klyushnikov; poet and the chief editor of Translit Pavel Arsenyev; poet and playwright Andrey Rodionov; and curator of Pyataya noga festival of video poetry, playwright and journalist Ekaterina Troyepolskaya.
Communion
Written and directed by Keti Chukhrov
2016, 23 min 57 sec.
