Film Screening and Artist Talk with Stefanie Batten Bland

Southampton Arts Center will present a special screening of Stefanie Batten Bland’s award-winning short film Kolonial, followed by a conversation with Batten Bland.

Commissioned by the Baryshnikov Arts Center, Kolonial (2021) is the final product of a three-year research project between installation artist Conrad Quesen and choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland. An installation-based dance-cinematic work, Kolonial is centered inside performative transparent spaces—cages that reveal colonial foundations and mythology. Inspired by the ethnic exposition parks primarily of Europe, North America, and the colonial Caribbean during the 1810s to1940s, this dance-cinema piece examines how we create definitions to justify systems that exploit and oppress. The film’s physical posturing and gestures interrogate identities suppressed through human zoos and how that relates to our viral cages of today.

“Kolonial is beautifully conceived, filmed, and performed…” (The Dance Enthusiast)