You Fear No Inferno When You Are Born Amidst Flames


Sunday Open Kino: You Fear No Inferno When You Are Born Amidst Flames
This event took place August 27th in the Open Kino at Sonsbeek 20-24 force times distance.

The movie Born in Flames by Lizzie Borden takes place in a future where the USA went through a socialist revolution. The movie follows multiple feminists from different backgrounds with different approaches as they struggle within patriarchal systems. (spoiler alert ahead!! go watch the movie!!!) A turning point is reached when Adelaide Norris, a black queer woman is murdered in prison and all these different characters start understanding the importance of a shared struggle and the power of collectivity. They start working together on changing the narrative by hijacking air time from mainstream media.
This was such a rich and interesting film as it covers so many important themes including but not limited to; revolution, police violence, intersectionality, white feminism, class struggle and direct action.

As a kick-off to HIBERNATION these are all relevant, we want to actively and consciously reject the idea of an artist as inherently part of an art system that oppresses on the basis of capitalism. For that we need intersectional feminism, direct action, time, rest and a hibernation.

We asked everyone who attended some questions and gave them the chance to write them down and mail them to us. We got some amazing responses from which I want to share some excerpts:

The storyline in the movie that I recognized most within my experience in art school was the storyline about the white feminists who were highly educated and had successful careers in male dominated fields. These women were journalists and had direct influence on the narrative followed by the status quo. They reminded me of the trope ‘’The Exceptional Woman’’, a woman who is deemed exceptional by her ability to thrive in male dominated worlds by putting other women down and conforming to the status quo, or to put it in meme terms; gatekeep, gaslight, girlboss. I have had many experiences where I misjudged a woman in a powerful position for fighting the same fight whilst she was actually working to keep things as they are.

- Anonymous

Once I was walking in the narrow Dutch streets, the flowers that were planted in the front yard / graveyard of a house screamed to me in despair asking me to pick them and take them away from that prison, even if that will cost them their lives. I couldn’t do it because I was afraid the house owners will call the police on me, I still think of these flowers and I feel sad that I let them down.

- Omarleen