Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
In Westafrican Roadmovie the viewer is brought along on an adventure in the style of a GoPro-travel documentary. The condensed timeline eliminates the travel distance that exists between the locations visited. Different blocks are merged together; a backstreet in Accra leads to a shore in Sierra Leone, with a soundtrack of Swedish pop music – and behind every corner lies a makeshift gym, a slaughtered hen, or a tailor of fake Dior suits in Guinea-Conakry.
Born in 1983 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently based in Stockholm.
In the video “Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap” (2009), Ilja Karilampi explores a rumor that Dr Dre studied to become an architect before joining N.W.A. Taking that work as a starting point, Karilampi has in the recent decade gone on to create a series of exhibitions and works that aesthetically reflect the music world, personal narratives, and odd expressions. Applying various media such as UV-vinyl, film, aluminum & plexiglas, audio tracks, literary texts, and larger installations that play with expectations of time & space, he has proved to be a vibrant & curious artist who depicts our current state.”
– Sten Nordenhake, 2019
“More often than not Karilampi’s behavior genuinely seems to diverge from the day-to-day normative human encounter, predominantly setting itself apart by continuously manifesting—at least allegorically—an unspoiled nature of impulse. The initial frustration of witnessing first hand the artist’s acutely non-gentrified way of interaction exits as rapidly as it enters. Somehow it’s immediately apparent that, if anything, his chaotic posture contributes and parallels only further to the intentionality behind his art practice: a playful homage to a thrivingly memory-less and hyper-plasticized society.
His work, a variety of media, reflects concurrent reality of the personal and public that constantly coincides within the domain of mass-consumerism. Referencing an array of fast-lived pop-culture commodities—like the easily recognizable Drake logo OVO XO or Chobani Greek yogurt—the audience is thrown into a die-hard- sort of cosmos where an inevitable confrontation with (actual) real-life concern takes place.”– COEVAL MAGAZINE, 2016
Agassi F Bangura
Born in 1982 in Bo Town, Sierra Leone. Currently resides in Frankfurt since 2005.
Throughout several films, shot while traveling the world, Agassi explores the on-camera presence and the performative idea about oneself. He often plays with the idea of shamanic masculinity in his performances and video works. The “African Fitness Gym”, a workout site built out of wood and concrete, exhibited at the Städelschule in 2010, is a critique of a modernist idea of progress, which he sees in consumption-oriented fitness studios. Together with Ilja Karilampi, he has been collaborating on a series of projects focusing on re-discovering geographic areas through research and film recordings, most recently for an upcoming movie in and around Uganda.
