AFK | Screenings

Svetlana Romanova: Voyage of Jeanette

Svetlana Romanova

Man wearing blue-tinted sunglasses on his head holds a baby, his free hand close to the lens with thumb and index finger appearing to rub against each other. They are outside in a field on a blue, sunny day.

Voyage of Jeanette

Svetlana Romanova

USA/ Russia | 2024 | Digital | 97 MIN | Sakha, Russian, English

Set in the Yakutian Arctic, Voyage of Jeanette is a compilation of filmmaker Svetlana Romanova's personal notes, both verbal and visual. This essay film explores the intersection between image production and narrative creation. It examines how stories manifest in the embodied history, heritage, and memory of the Yakutian people, as well as within the global public.

Location

e-flux Screening Room

172 Classon Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11205

USA

For a map of e-flux Screening Room, click here

COVID-19 Policy

Images Festival is committed to providing an accessible festival and continues to work to reduce barriers to participation at our events. This year, we are implementing a COVID-19 policy to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for all, and to prioritize the participation of people who are disability-identified, immunocompromised, or part of an otherwise vulnerable group.

The following guidelines will be in place: Self-Assessment: We ask that staff and participants screen themselves for COVID-19 before visiting the exhibition.

Join us at e-flux Screening Room on Thursday, October 10 at 7pm for a screening of Voyage of Jeanette, the latest film by Svetlana Romanova, followed by an in-person conversation with the artist.

Exploring Indigenous identity, visual sovereignty, and the critical reimagining of history, Romanova’s Voyage of Jeanette examines how dominant narratives of Arctic regions are constructed and how they shape understandings of place and self. Set in the Yakutian Arctic, the film interrogates Western perspectives of discovery, contrasting them with the immediate realities of Yakutian communities. Through her distinct visual language, Romanova reflects on the intersection of personal and collective memory, inviting viewers to consider the complexities of identity and the persistence of Indigenous voices in a rapidly changing world.

Voyage of Jeanette (USA/Russia, 2024, 97 minutes)

Constructed out of personal notes, both verbal and visual, Voyage of Jeanette is an essay film that poses questions about the intersection between image production and the creation of narratives, which shape our perception of contemporaneity and manifest in our performances of history, heritage, and memory. The film invites the viewer to ask vital questions about the meaning of peripheries and how western ontologies of discovery and the writing of history are absorbed into, or contrast with, immediate Yakutian realities.

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.

Svetlana Romanova

Svetlana Romanova (Sakha/Even) is an artist and filmmaker born in Yakutsk, the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located south of the Arctic Circle. Her practice centers on the importance of Indigenous visual language, particularly in the Arctic regions and gravitates towards critical self-historization.

Presented With:

Images Festival operates on land stolen from the Anishinaabe, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation. Tkáron:to is currently home to diverse Indigenous and Métis peoples as well as people who settle on this land. As part of Treaty 13 and the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Covenant, we acknowledge that we all eat from the same bowl and spoon, and must take only what we need, ensuring resources are available for all.

As art workers, artists, and curators, we see the process of untangling ourselves from settler complicity as internal, structural, and ongoing. It is not something to be taken lightly. The inclusion of Indigenous artists and curators into our program is just the first step of necessary and deeper change. Extending from our organizational accountability work, we strive to not only undo forms of complicity, but also actively create an environment and infrastructure that can support Indigenous peoples who work with us.

Images expresses our solidarity with Indigenous people on Turtle Island and globally. We are committed to continuing to learn, critique, and challenge the settler colonial structures we are complicit in.