REVIEW: The fourth edition of the 51zero Festival, Medway

Martha Kıyan gives an overview of the 2019 51zero Festival in an emerging art powerhouse, Medway

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The fourth edition of the 51zero festival, taken after the geographical coordinates of Medway, brought together the creme-de-la-creme of emerging and established artists, practitioners and filmmakers, thinkers and musicians from the area and overseas to leave a culturally significant heritage imprint on the minds of local communities by focusing on contemporary art and cinema.

This year the festival’s launch took place in Dickens' hometown, right in the heart of Rochester Cathedral’s crypt and was accompanied by live music featuring the extraordinary trio of country's leading musicians: Rowland Sutherland on flute, Cecilia Bignal on cello and Jonathan Mansfield on vibraphone, playing enchanting medieval tunes within the Normans sacred walls, which symbolised the coming together of contemporary and old worlds.

Extended across Restoration House, the Guildhall and Huguenot museums, Rochester High Street, the University for the Creative Arts campus and the Herbert Read Gallery in Canterbury, its mission is always to question if the community can bridge the gap between the art today and the people. Could the former influence conventional understanding of what is expected of artists by the political and economic context they are put in or be swept under the society’s social constraints?

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As Margherita Gramegna, the film director, writer, producer and co-curator of the festival, put it: “51zero festival contributes to the artistic landscape of Medway and Kent fostering a growing interest in artists’ moving image and contemporary art, engaging audiences and cultivating emerging talent, to build cultural value and a legacy for the area. This year’s project is ambitious and forward-looking in view of Medway’s aspiration to be the next UK City of Culture.”

Co-curator David Goldenberg adds: “ We want to showcase qualities inherent to 51zero festival that are relevant to the location and people, rather than importing and adopting pre-existing models. The festival also attempts to look at what a 21st-century art practice is and how reality is seen and filtered through art.” 

The festival is the brainchild of Margherita Gramegna and her students. Her passionate heart’s desire was to help youngsters catch a falling star and make a huge difference in the art and cinema world, which is impossible to do without a kindred spirit’s help: “With young people for young people to give them an opportunity to not only exhibit film but plan every aspect of the festival’s organisation. I just wanted to be a mentor, someone who inspired them. I wanted them to feel comfortable working with me. I needed them as much as they needed me. They are my children.”

Among the exhibitions presented, the new work “Granulation” by David Goldenberg, which is an installation and online project situated in the undercroft area of the Guildhall Museum, re-invents a new meaning of the ‘body of art’ by re-assembling it into ‘molecular parts’ to lay a foundation for a new language of art. While the “Chakras” by Rasheed Araeen, a pioneer of minimalist sculpture in Britain, comprised 16 painted purple wooden discs and Farunghi Mahai - Palace of the Foreigners (2016), transforms our imagination in a way of perfectly aligned deconstruction of a royal palace. 

Like an eagle spreads gracefully it's massive wings, the festival places artwork at the centre of populi, expanding the horizons of art's experimental function of today and breaking any misunderstanding barriers in the process. 

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Social Morphologies Research Unit presented their work Morphologies of Invisible Agents, making visible the forces behind political movements and social change, which again engaged audiences to re-define models of contemporary thought in regards to the public sphere and the world of politics.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. We had everything before us, we had nothing before us.
— Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

The moving image screening showcased the works of Laure Prouvost (Monolog, 2009), David Hall (TV Interruptions, 1971 - extract), Joan Jonas (Wind, 1968 - extract and Songdelay, 1973), John Smith (Dad’s Stick, 2012 and Associations, 1975), Simon Tyszko (Empire, 2019), Seth Price (Feeling in the Eyes, 2002), Kerry Baldry (Body, 2018 - re-edited),  Jan Svankmajer (Punch and Judy, 1968 and Dimension of Dialogue, Eternal Conversation, 1982), Zbigniew Rybczynski (Mein Fenster, 1979), Tony Hill (Holding the Viewer, 1993) and Sally Troughton (Set Aside, 2013).

More official information about 51zero festival and how to participate in 2020, send an email to office@51zero.org