Join The Mosaic Rooms and Iniva for a special screening and discussion about Nadia Kaabi-Linke’s video installation ‘NO’ which focuses on the rigorous visa process that people must go through to enter the UK.

‘NO’ is a two-channel video installation, presenting a dialogue in which a crowd, without power despite their numbers, opposes an individual voice of authority. On one screen an omnipotent faceless mouth voices the questions the UK border agency asks on the visa form. On the other, a choir of Tunisian citizens sings the responses to these demands for information. They are a group, yet they remain subject to the authoritarian voice and its investigation. The setting within an Anglican church draws parallels to the Holy Inquisition and the presumption of guilt without fair hearing.

The video piece was inspired by Kaabi Linke’s own experience but also in response to the recent uprisings in Tunisia which saw “many people fleeing from North Africa. The uprisings were motivated by an unanimous consent for more freedom, social fairness and economical wealth, but then, when the protests showed first signs of success, refugees from Tunisia and other parts of Africa used the gaps of the North African borders to searched freedom and wealth where it always was supposed to be, in Europe.”

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Nadia Kaabi-Linke in conversation with curator Nat Muller. They will talk about the process and experience of making this work.

Nat Muller is an independent curator and critic based in Rotterdam. Her main interests include: the intersection of aesthetics, media and politics; media art and contemporary art in and from the Middle East. She has held staff positions at V2_Institute for Unstable Media in Rotterdam and De Balie, Center for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam. She is a regular contributor to Springerin and MetropolisM. Her writing has been published amongst others in Bidoun, ArtAsiaPacific, Art Papers and Canvas. She has also written numerous book chapters, catalogue and monographic essays. Her 2014 projects include Memory Material at Akinci Gallery, Amsterdam; Customs Made: Quotidian Practices & Everyday Rituals at Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah; This is the Time. This is the Record of the Time at Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam & American University of Beirut Gallery and Disquiet at Galeri Zilberman/Pi Artworks (Istanbul). For TENT (Rotterdam) she curated a series of debates Breaking the Bank: Art, Value and the Global Economy. In 2015 she is curating Sadik Kwaish Alfraji’s solo show at Ayyam Gallery (Dubai) and will be curator-in-residence at the Delfina Foundation’s Politics of Food Program (London). www.natmuller.com

FREE, RSVP here