Professorial Platform Lecture: Intuitive Cinema, Possible Film?

Join us at Central Saint Martins for a lecture by Professor Andrea Luka Zimmerman, presenting their making of what has been called Intuitive Cinema. This term has been applied to their work as a way of understanding its inter-relation of the embodied, the experienced and the engaged. Considering the wider formal and thematic possibilities of moving image practice, this illustrated talk will explore how film can advocate for the marginalised, the 'other' - both human and not - in a world of multiple crises.

Welcome by Professor Rathna Ramanathan, Provost of CSM and Executive Dean for Global Affairs.

Introductions by Michiko Oki, CSM Senior Lecturer, BA Performance Design and Practice.

Presentation followed by an in-conversation with Nadine Monem, CSM Lecturer, BA Culture Criticism and Curation.

Lecture: 6.30pm - 7.45pm

Reception: 7.45pm - 8.45pm

Through an illustrated presentation covering their recent moving image works (While the Gods Were Busy with Another Child, here and not here, Wayfaring Stranger and earlier titles), Andrea Luka Zimmerman will argue for these works as Intuitive Cinema, a form of Possible Film, which seeks a radical re-engagement with a world in turmoil. Centring those routinely marginalised and 'othered' - whether through class, race, geography or gender - by hierarchies of power, this event will draw from Zimmerman's own biography to reflect on both the potentialities and limits of structural engagement. Investigating what it means to be fully attentive, and how to make work ‘in relation’, to seek the ‘with’ (not about), Zimmerman will centre ideas of gratitude and justice in analysing the structural, social and cultural contexts from and into which the work emerges.

BIOGRAPHY

Andrea Luka Zimmerman is a Jarman Award-winning artist and filmmaker whose multilayered practice has been described as Intuitive Cinema. It embodies and explores fragile refusals and counter memories, and itinerant lives, human and otherwise, in relation to structural and political injustice.

Their many films include: Taskafa, Stories of the Street (2013, written and voiced by the late John Berger), Estate, a Reverie (2015), Erase and Forget (2017), Artangel-produced Here for Life (2019) and Wayfaring Stranger (2024, featuring Eileen Myles), which have screened widely around the world including at Locarno, IDFA, Istanbul, Berlin, BAFICI and IFFR festivals, as well as in cinemas, galleries, and community and activist spaces.

BIOGRAPHY

Professor Rathna Ramanathan took up her post as Provost and Executive Dean in September 2022. Originally, from Chennai, India, Rathna is a typographer, practice researcher and academic known for her expertise in intercultural communication and alternative publishing practices. Rathna has a track record in delivering international communication design research projects which focus on amplifying marginalised voices, primarily in the Global South. She is a UAL Reader in Intercultural Communication.

Rathna has significant experience in shaping dynamic and innovative teaching and learning across taught and research programmes. She was previously Dean of Academic Strategy, Central Saint Martins and Dean of the School of Communication at the Royal College of Art, where she led an experienced team in delivering the College’s first virtual and highly acclaimed UAL Showcase during the pandemic.

BIOGRAPHY

Nadine Monem is an editor, publisher and writer working across experimental forms of criticism and speculative nonfiction. They lecture on the BA and MA Culture, Criticism and Curation programmes and supervise PhD students, with a pedagogical practice informed by decolonial and feminist approaches. Their writing has been published internationally and recognised with several awards and fellowships. As an editor and art publisher, they have co-created more than 50 books on contemporary art and culture, working with leading artists, writers, galleries and museums internationally.

BIOGRAPHY

Michiko Oki is an art historian, cultural researcher, and writer whose interdisciplinary work explores avant-garde and modernism, critical theory, and transcultural studies. Her research examines how art, imagination, and cultural practices respond to violence, power, and the forces of social normalisation.

Dr. Oki holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and Art from University College London and is currently a Senior Lecturer in BA Performance: Design and Practice at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her recent research explores themes including digital animism, Surrealism, polytheistic perception, carnivalesque cultures, and the transformative potential of humour and the “dark imagination” in art and society.

SERIES

As the University continues to maintain and develop its profile as a global leader in arts research, UAL launched a series of Professorial Platform lectures in 2008. These lectures are an opportunity for University colleagues and associates, as well as members of the public, to learn more about the research undertaken in the University. The events will enable nominated Readers and Professors to highlight their field of interest and the University, in turn, to recognise and commemorate their successes to date.

Image Credit: Wayfaring Stranger