Welcome 2020 Research Forum Participants

In its 33rd edition, Images Festival will be held for audiences and participants via a live stream on our website. All Research Forum participants—along with Research Forum Lead Almudena Escobar López and Education Assistant Tara Hakim—will convene virtually during the festival to dive into what they have seen, and ideas they are hoping to develop, experience, and unpack in these programs. 

In addition to periods of group discussion, the cohort will also remotely meet with invited guests of the festival who will elaborate on their contributions to the program and practices at-large, as well as browse online updates surrounding our exhibitions in partnership with local media arts organizations. 

View our latest Call for Participants for the Research Forum here.

2020 PARTICIPANTS

We are thrilled to welcome a cohort of six participants spanning a range of artistic practice and media, including text, photo, video, movement, and pedagogy. They will be delving into deep discussions about their research, leanings, and curiosities in the context of the 2020 Images Festival's live stream and online programming. 

See their bios below, and stay tuned for our participants' reflections following the upcoming festival!

José Sarmiento Hinojosa is film critic, programmer, and curator from Lima, Perú. A candidate for the Masters' Degree in History and Curatorship of the Arts at PUCP - Lima, Bachelor of Science and Communication Arts with a specialty in Advertising. Director, film critic and programmer for Desistfilm.com. Programmer, curator and co-manager at MUTA, International Festival of Audiovisual Appropriation. Berlinale Talents Alumnus 2014, has been a contributor to international publications such as Senses of Cinema and a film workshop facilitator/speaker for different organizations. Worked as a guest professor of experimental cinema at the PUCP Faculty of Arts, where he has published the book "Video Essay", along with two other authors in 2018.

Satya Hariharan is a writer and filmmaker, currently based in Queens, NY, particularly interested in non-fiction and hybrid works, especially those that eschew traditional narrative forms. His work seeks to engage with the impacts of capitalism and colonialism on image production and consumption, the proliferation of images in contemporary media culture, and the representation of the poetic across forms of media. He will complete his B.A. in Media and Documentary Forms at The New School in 2020. 

Sarah Friedland is a filmmaker and choreographer working at the intersection of moving images and moving bodies. Her work has been screened, installed, and performed across film, art, and dance venues including New Directors/New Films, Ann Arbor Film Festival, BAMcinématek, Performa19 Biennial, La MaMa Galleria, Sharjah Art Foundation, MAM Rio, Wassaic Project, the American Dance Festival and Dixon Place, among many others. She is currently an AIM Emerging Artist Fellow at The Bronx Museum. www.motionandpictures.com

Sanjit Dhillon is a multidisciplinary artist, curator and arts administrator based in Tkaranto/Toronto, Canada. Her practice interrogates constructions of memory, hegemonic structures, and the limits of visual culture in creating and disseminating identity. She has curated for Xpace Cultural Centre, DUTY FREE magazine and participated in residencies at Whippersnapper Gallery and Roundtable Residency.

Crystal Z Campbell is a multidisciplinary artist, experimental filmmaker, and writer of Black, Filipino, and Chinese descents who excavates public secrets. Campbell’s latest film, VIEWFINDER (2020), is an experimental performance documentary exploring the legacy of a Bag Lady monument and displacement in a coastal Swedish town. Campbell exhibits internationally: Drawing Center, ICA-Philadelphia, Artissima, Studio Museum, and SculptureCenter. Honors include: Pollock-Krasner, MAP, MacDowell, Skowhegan, Rijksakademie, Whitney ISP, and Flaherty Film Fellowship. Campbell is a Tulsa Artist Fellow.

Libertad Gills is a filmmaker, writer, researcher and teacher at the Universidad de las Artes of Ecuador. She co-directs the Encuentro de Cine Casero de Guayaquil (Home Movie Day) and the film collective Guayaquil Analógico since 2018. She has published in Senses of Cinema, Short Film Studies, Desistfilm, and Fuera de Campo, and has programmed for Festival de Cine Radical in 2019 and Festival MUTA in 2018. Her films have screened at Transcinema, Cámara Lúcida, Fajr International Film Festival, Cortópolis, Short Film Corner and FICWALLMAPU where she received an award. In 2012 she received the Premio Mariano Aguilera National Arts Prize. She is currently working towards her Ph.D.