How do we traverse land with understanding? How does understanding traverse culture and borders? Guided by exhibiting artist Sky Hopinka's interest in how language shapes perception of place, Cadence Video Poetry presents a selection of works by local and international video poets engaging with relationships to land through various methods of communication. These artworks navigate the intricacies of family, community, and history that move across land and language.

Participating artists include Ariana Simpson, Kamyar Mohsenin, Thijs Hendrik Jan Fisser, Livia Glascock, Harvey Castro with Irma Pineda & Wendy Call, and Mahshid Afzali & Mahoor Mirshakkak. Full film lineup is included below.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Cadence Video Poetry Festival, presented by Northwest Film Forum, programmed in collaboration with Seattle author Chelsea Werner-Jatzke and intermedia artist Rana San, is a series of screenings, workshops, and discussions on the genre of video poetry, during National Poetry Month.

Cadence approaches video poetry as a literary genre presented as visual media that makes new meaning from the combination of text and moving image. Featuring screenings, an artist residency, generative workshops for youth and adults, and juried awards, the festival fosters critical and creative growth around the medium of video poetry.

The 2024 festival takes place in-person April 19–21 and online April 19–28.

ABOUT THE FILMS

My Home Is (⠍⠽⠀⠓⠕⠍⠑⠀⠊⠎)

A homesick tribute to the fertile swamps, swaying palm fronds, and fond descriptions of the filmmaker’s Florida home, this film is alive with evocative language of the land’s humid spirit.

(Ariana Simpson, US, 2023, 4 min, in English with hardcoded English text and Braille)

2024 Cadence Artist-in-Residence!

Adhan

An abstract exploration of the multifaceted relationships between the African diaspora, Islam, and selfhood. The film interprets the Adhan, the Islamic public call to prayer, as a religious tool of testament, spiritual bridge between existences, and an apparatus to deepen one’s connection with the divine and self.

(Kamyar Mohsenin, US, 2023, 5 min, in Arabic)

Fairies

Fairies delves into the intricate relationship between queerness, melancholy, and utopianism. Encapsulating traces of rural village life, hardship, and the tender embrace of home, this film serves as a poetic translation of stepping out of the binary that holds queer possibilities at a standstill and embracing oneself in this transitional zone. Watch the trailer >>

(Thijs Hendrik Jan Fisser, Netherlands, 2023, 11 min, in English with hardcoded English text)

the heart farm

the heart farm explores ties to landscape, family, and self, highlighting the tenderness in the uncertainty of the human experience. Drawing on Appalachian heritage, the piece aims to convey the nuances of such a liminal space.

(Livia Glascock, US, 2023, 5 min, nonverbal with hardcoded handwritten English text)

2024 Cadence Artist-in-Residence!

The Wall (Cue' Yoo / La pared)

A photographic interpretation of Irma Pineda’s poem “Cue’ Yoo / La pared (The Wall)” that emphasizes how emotion etches itself on our memories, creating narratives that seep beyond expected boundaries of time and space. Translated to English by Wendy Call.

(director: Harvey Castro, poets: Irma Pineda & Wendy Call, Mexico, 2022, 3 min, in Spanish & English with no subtitles or captions)

a moment of exposure

A collaborative experimental documentary in which the camera, as an attentive observer, shows its own memories and associations related to the multimedia art installation Safe & Sound by Mahoor Mirshakkak, creating a sensual and visual connection between artifacts in the exhibition and the artist’s memories and lived moments outside of the exhibition. The film follows the process of preparation, presentation, and dismantling of the exhibition while seeking its visual and sensual origins in the real world.

(Mahshid Afzali & Mahoor Mirshakkak, Iran, 2024, 20 min, in English with hardcoded English subtitles)