About this Event
Autobiography of a Cave System
Film Performance & Artist Talk with Lohitha Kethu and Nureena Faruqi
Part of Filaments: A Disabled Creative Spotlight Series
Join Twelve Gates Arts for a film performance and artist talk by Lohitha Kethu, presented with writer and artist Nureena Faruqi.
In the film, Kethu will use a blood glucose meter, an older technology diabetics use to test their blood sugar, to prick their fingertips. They will dip a paintbrush in the blood and paint a cave system by hand on watercolor paper, narrating prose-poetry for each cave as it appears. The film will run about 25-30 minutes.
For Kethu, being disabled evokes living underground: biding time, writing on the walls even if it means writing in your own blood, so that you might one day be remembered. A cave is solitary, but a cave system is collective, a journey of convergences and divergences. The work layers a visceral experience of diabetes with prehistoric cave life, ethnic and creative lineage, mysticism, and medical technology.
After the screening, Kethu will give an artist talk expanding on these themes, followed by a Q&A and a chance to view other work, including wearable and rock art.
Content note: This work includes depictions of blood and finger-pricking.
About Filaments
Filaments is part of the Twelve Gates Accessibility Initiative. The series features disabled creatives of the global majority, with the aim of encouraging disabled storytelling, building visibility, and bridging the barriers that often keep people out of gallery spaces..
Event venue & nearby stays
Twelve Gates Arts, 106 North 2nd Street, Philadelphia, United States
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