PRESS INFORMATION 24 APRIL 2013

HOLD YOUR GROUND

Hold Your Ground is inspired by the events of the Arab Spring. The title refers to the discovery by artists Karen Mirza and Brad Butler in Cairo of a printed pamphlet of instructions for pro-democracy demonstrators. Titled How to Protest Intelligently, within the pamphlet is a page depicting a protestor defending his/herself from violence by the police; adjacent to this is the text, Hold your Ground, Egyptian! Central to the exhibition Vivid Projects presents Deep State, a new film by Jarman Award 2012 nominees Karen Mirza and Brad Butler scripted in collaboration with author China Miville.

Images courtesy waterside contemporary, London. Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella.

Deep State germinated from Mirza and Butlers experiences in Cairo prior to the occupation of Tahrir Square, at a time when it seemed impossible to speak about resistance. This sharpened their interest in making a work that calls out and dislodges ossified language and images. The naming is, again, textual derivation, the work taking its title from the Turkish term Derin Devlet, meaning state within the state.

The influence of this deep state is glimpsed at regular points throughout the film most clearly surfacing in its reflexive responses to popular protest, and in legislated acts of violence and containment, but also rumbling and reverberating, deeper down, in a counterlanguage to that of popular revolt, in which a police charge, a baton attack, pepper spray, assassinations provoke, and respond to, a raised fist, a thrown rock, a crowd surge, an occupation. The film presents a vivid montage of newly filmed and archive footage from London and Turkey, and the graphic images of police violence during recent street protests contrasts with the fictional elements, shown from the perspective of a time traveler. Deep State is not a documentary; rather, it is a narrative of images called to action. It articulates the relationship of the body to protest, and interrogates languages of protest. Framed by the voices of Egyptian activists and the art of the streets, Hold Your Ground rethinks the act of protest as a cultural gesture owned by no one, and visible to all. -------------

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Note to Editors: 1. 2. 3. Vivid Projects is a collaborative agency dedicated to exploring the convergence of film, video, performance and interdisciplinary practice, and is based in Birmingham, UK. Deep State is presented courtesy waterside contemporary, London. Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella. Revolution 06-09, Hold your Ground is presented as part of Vivid Projects opening season 33 REVOLUTIONS which runs from February - September 2013 and asks the question; can art and culture be a catalyst for social change? Key support for the 2013 programme is from The National Lottery through Arts Council England, The Henry Moore Fund and Paul Mellon. For information on the forward programme and hi-res images please contact Programme Manager laura@vividprojects.org.uk. Requests for interviews should be made to yasmeen@vividprojects.org.uk Karen Mirza & Brad Butler have worked together since 1998, and in 2004 formed no.w.here, an artistrun space for the production, discussion and dissemination of practices engaged with the moving image, politics, technology and aesthetics. no.w.heres role as a cooperative environment is directly related to the centering of Mirza and Butlers own practice upon collaboration, dialogue and the social. http://www.mirza-butler.net/

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