Past Event
Artist and film-maker Ken McMullen’s powerful study of Greek culture and politics, both ancient and modern, fuses acute dramatisations of Antigone with portraits of contemporary resilience.
Following the screening Ken McMullen will join a Q&A with Whitechapel Gallery Adjunct Film Curator Gareth Evans.
‘OXI: An Act of Resistance’ offers a response to the global economic crisis through drama, philosophy and poetry.
Taking its title from the ancient word and symbol of resistance used for centuries in Greece the film suggests that there is a perennial repetition compulsion in history. Greece, both ancient and contemporary, is portrayed as the observational laboratory for predictions on the future, and key moments in the classical dramas of Sophocles and Aristophanes are played out and underscored by political and philosophical commentary.
Ken McMullen is an award-winning experimental film-maker and artist based in London. His works are grounded in philosophy, history, psychoanalysis and literature and he has written and directed over thirty documentary films and eight feature films.
Trained as a fine artist, he continues to work as an interdisciplinary visual artist, collaborating with physicists and contemporary philosophers such as Jacques Derrida .Mullen’s work is in the collections of MOMA New York; Metropolitan Museum New York; BFI London; Centre Pompidou Paris; British Council; Arts Council England; Arts Council Scotland; Gulbenkian Foundation; Cinemateque Francais; GNFA Athens and BBC/ARTE/C4 and he is Professor of Film at Kingston University.
