Old Cartographies (Anew They Shall Be)

Razan AlSalah, Udval Altangerel, Riar Rizaldi, Anoushka Mirchandani, Alisha Tejpal, Mireya Martinez

About

Old Cartographies (Anew They Shall Be) presents four films that engage with maps, lands, borders, and the colonial histories behind them. Razan AlSalah foregrounds her identity as a diasporic Palestinian unable to return to her ancestral lands in her embodied communing with unceded indigenous land in Canada, which bears similarities with the titular Canada Park. Udval Altangerel’s (Film, MFA ‘22) reconnection with her ancestral homeland in the Gobi Desert reveals a slow intimacy. Riar Rizaldi’s speculative non-fiction work pierces the notion of history and centralizes Indigenous belief systems. Anoushka Mirchandani, Mireya Martinez, and Alisha Tejpal (Film, MFA ‘19) blend a complex discussion of the archive with familial remembrance. Taken together, these films hold space for remembrance beyond violence and a reverence for memory and return.

 

The program includes a post-screening conversation with the filmmakers Alisha Tejpal and Mireya Martinez, moderated by film programmer Jheanelle Brown.

Presented in English, Indonesian, Mongolian with English subtitles.

 

…Tellurian Drama is a sustained feat of world-building that explores tropical sci-fi visions inspired by indigenous belief systems. 

Adeline Chia, ArtReview

about the artists

Razan

Razan is a Palestinian artist and teacher based in Tio’tia:ke/Montreal. Her films work with the material aesthetics of appearance and disappearance of Indigenous bodies, narratives, and histories in colonial image worlds. She often works with sound-images to infiltrate borders that have severed us from the land. Her films are both ghostly trespasses and seeping ruptures of the colonial image that functions as a border, as a wall. She thinks of her creative process as a circle of relations with artists, friends, family, technology, images, plants, objects, and sounds … and the unknown. These relations become different points of entry and exit into elsewheres here, where colonialism no longer makes sense.

Website

 

Udval Altangerel

Udval Altangerel is a filmmaker based between Ulaanbaatar and Los Angeles. In her work she explores the themes of personal and national histories, language, and (home)land. She received her MFA in Film Directing from California Institute of the Arts. 

Website

 

Riar Rizaldi

Riar Rizaldi works as an artist and filmmaker. His artistic practice focuses mostly on world views and the possibility of theoretical fiction. His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Locarno, Rotterdam, FIDMarseille, Viennale, BFI London, Cinéma du Réel, etc.) as well as Centre Pompidou Paris (2021); NTT (ICC), Tokyo (2020); Taipei Biennial (2023); Istanbul Biennial (2022); Venice Architecture Biennale (2021); Biennale Jogja (2021); National Gallery of Indonesia (2019); and other venues and institutions. In addition, solo exhibitions and focused programs of his works had been held at Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto (2023), and Centre de la photographie Genève (2023).

Instagram / Website

 

Anoushka Mirchandani

Anoushka Mirchandani (b. 1988, Pune, India) is a San Francisco-based artist. Mirchandani’s practice examines her experience as an Indian, immigrant, other, woman. Her work probes ancestry, personal history, and cultural and sociopolitical environments through a diasporic lens, exploring the micro-tensions and identity transformations that are part and parcel of code-switching and assimilation in a foreign land.

Her solo shows include Galerie Isa, Mumbai, India (2023); UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles (2023); Rhodes Contemporary Art, London (2021); and Glass Rice Gallery, San Francisco (2020).

Mirchandani’s group shows and fairs include Bode Gallery, Berlin, curated by Dexter Wimberly (2023); Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York City, curated by Amoako Boafo and Larry Ossei-Mensah (2022); The Armory Show with Yossi Milo Gallery, New York City (2022); Legion Projects, Healdsburg, California (2021); Knowhere Art Gallery, Martha’s Vineyard, New York (2021); Glass Rice Gallery, San Francisco (2020); California State Senator Scott Wiener’s public offices, San Francisco (2019); Root Division, San Francisco (2019); and Arc Gallery, San Francisco (2017-‘18). 

Instagram / Website

 

Alisha Tejpal

Alisha Tejpal is an Indian filmmaker based between Los Angeles and Mumbai. Her work has screened at various international film festivals, including San Sebastián, Sundance, Rotterdam, Camden International Film Festival, Black Canvas, and Dharamshala International Film Festival. Her first short “Lata” won multiple awards and her work in cinema has been featured by Arte, Mubi, the Criterion Collection, IndieWire and Variety among others. Alisha’s works vary in form but their commonality lies in their investigation of the invisible. Currently she is developing two feature-length projects: Untitled Objects (creative documentary) and For the Eyes are Blind to the Stairwells (narrative fiction).

Her work has received support from the Sundance Institute, Film at Lincoln Center, and the Points North Institute. She was a fellow at the 2018 Doc’s Kingdom Seminar and most recently was awarded a MacDowell Fellowship. She holds an MFA in Film Directing from California Institute of the Arts.

Instagram

 

Mireya Martinez

Mireya Martinez is a filmmaker and producer based between Los Angeles and Mumbai. While her work ranges in form, her sole pursuit is to tell and support stories that make the human experience palpable in all of its tatteredness, fragility, magnitude, and joy. Her work and collaborations have screened at festivals—such as San Sebastián, Sundance, Outfest, True/False, Rotterdam, Museum of Moving Image—and can be found online on Mubi and The Criterion Channel. Mireya is a 2021 Sundance Institute x Women in Film Fellow and MacDowell residency recipient. She holds an MFA in Film Directing from California Institute of the Arts.

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list of films

Canada Park (2020), 8 min.

Dir. Razan AlSalah

 

Tellurian Drama (2022), 26 min.

Dir. Riar Rizaldi

 

The Wind Carries Us Home (2022), 11 min.

Dir. Udval Altarangel

 

Landscapes of Longing (2023), 14 min.

Dir. Anoushka Mirchandani, Alisha Tejpal, and Mireya Martinez