Forma

The Reunion

PLEASE READ:

It is with deep regret we inform you that in response to current public health concerns relating to the COVID-19 virus, our upcoming event ‘The Reunion’ due to take place 19-22 March 2020 has been cancelled.

Our team at Forma, co-partners at AQNB and the artist collective Sorbus have worked hard to plan this intimate programme that included the screening of new film ‘Wild is the Wind’ and accompanying live events by the work’s protagonists. However in light of the safety measures announced by the CDC and World Health Organisation, we join our peers in the cultural and entertainment sectors, large and small, in the urgent need to restrict public gatherings in prioritisation of the health and safety of all, including our team, our artists, and yourselves.

We hope to put our combined energies with the artists involved to share this event with you in London in the near future.

In the meantime, we wish everyone peace of mind and health whilst we take care of ourselves and each other.



About the event

Forma in partnership with AQNB present The Reunion, the UK premiere screening of 'Wild is the Wind' (2019) by Sorbus Collective, and accompanying events programme.

Centering on themes of solitude, self-reflection and disruptive group dynamics, the programme will unfold over four days, (19 March Preview), 20-22 March 2020, on a moored vessel near Tower Bridge. Here the Helsinki-based artist collective will screen their newest video work and along with the cast, host evenings of live music, arts performance, poetry and dance, typical of their recently closed gallery space.

Welcoming audiences daily from 12pm, the 43-minute film ‘Wild is the Wind’ (2019) will be screened every hour until 6pm within an intimate space for up to 30 people at any given time.


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Sorbus

‘Wild is the Wind’ (2019) was commissioned by the Finnish Cultural Institute in London, as part of their Möbius Fellowship Program. Script development is further supported by AVEK. The UK premiere of ‘Wild is the Wind’ and specially arranged live programme is co-commissioned and co-produced by Forma Arts & Media and AQNB Productions, supported by Frame Contemporary Art Finland.

PLEASE READ:

It is with deep regret we inform you that in response to current public health concerns relating to the COVID-19 virus, our upcoming event ‘The Reunion’ due to take place 19-22 March 2020 has been cancelled.

Our team at Forma, co-partners at AQNB and the artist collective Sorbus have worked hard to plan this intimate programme that included the screening of new film ‘Wild is the Wind’ and accompanying live events by the work’s protagonists. However in light of the safety measures announced by the CDC and World Health Organisation, we join our peers in the cultural and entertainment sectors, large and small, in the urgent need to restrict public gatherings in prioritisation of the health and safety of all, including our team, our artists, and yourselves.

We hope to put our combined energies with the artists involved to share this event with you in London in the near future.

In the meantime, we wish everyone peace of mind and health whilst we take care of ourselves and each other.



About the event

Forma in partnership with AQNB present The Reunion, the UK premiere screening of 'Wild is the Wind' (2019) by Sorbus Collective, and accompanying events programme.

Centering on themes of solitude, self-reflection and disruptive group dynamics, the programme will unfold over four days, (19 March Preview), 20-22 March 2020, on a moored vessel near Tower Bridge. Here the Helsinki-based artist collective will screen their newest video work and along with the cast, host evenings of live music, arts performance, poetry and dance, typical of their recently closed gallery space.

Welcoming audiences daily from 12pm, the 43-minute film ‘Wild is the Wind’ (2019) will be screened every hour until 6pm within an intimate space for up to 30 people at any given time.

About the programme

Daily Screenings

The four day screening programme presents the UK debut of the 43min experimental narrative film ‘Wild is the Wind’

Film Screenings take place daily, on the hour
Friday 20 - Sunday 22 March
12 - 6pm
Free. Limited capacity, booking encouraged.


Evening events

The curated performance programme features participants from the film 'Wild is the Wind'. Find out more and book your evening tickets below.

Radical Pedagogy and Collective Ambiguity
An evening of artist readings and music from Josephine Baan, Sini Silveri and Elatu Nessa.
Friday 20 March
6.30 - 10pm
Tickets £5

Instruments of Sadness and Gestural Sound
An evening of artist performances and live music from Emmi Venna, André Chapatte and MSHR.
Saturday 21 March
6.30 - 10pm
Tickets £5

Moving Image as Resistance
Sorbus collective in conversation with Forma’s Assistant Curator, Carolina Ongaro.
Sunday 22 March
6.30 - 8pm
Tickets £2.50

About the film

'Wild is the Wind'' tells the story of a group of friends who have gathered at a remote house by the sea to celebrate the wedding of the performance artist Rudie to himself. As Rudie disappears, and the friends are left with the task of living with their loss, the tide washes up a new member to the group.

Through a fictitious, experimental narrative, Sorbus weaves a commentary on social interactions, the politics and dynamics of inhabiting an isolated space and humankind's search for togetherness. Using typical tropes of feature-length cinema – through a catalyst or moments of disruption – the film juxtaposes the sombre with the bizarre through the exaggeration of everyday actions and rituals. This disruptive narrative permeates throughout the film with the exit and entrance by the film’s characters. The absurdity of events creates a sense of discomfort and unfamiliarity to an otherwise familiar scene of friends gathering, ensuring that the viewer remains present and vigilant at all times.

‘Wild is the Wind’ and its accompanying live programme of events question what we do with one another, how we do it and what defines ‘we’. Instead of seeking predetermined answers, the characters respond to the rhythms of the narrative without a prescribed destiny. The film explores the tension between relishing uncertainty, whilst asserting agency. Such a paradoxical demand reflects today's uncertain climate in the UK and Europe. Whilst refusing an overtly political message or conclusion, the film alludes to the cracks in our political, communal and personal values-system by absorbing and assimilating the unknown.

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About the collective

Sorbus is a Helsinki-based artist collective and independent gallery. The collective is made up of six members: Otto Byström, Henna Hyvärinen, Jonna Karanka, Mika Palonen, Sakari Tervo and Tuomo Tuovinen who work together and independently across film, performance and installation.

The name Sorbus is taken from a popular Finnish alcoholic drink, often associated with low-income individuals and hardcore punks – an assertion of the collective’s anti-institutional position within the Helsinki art scene and their desire to establish ‘the kind of place in which we ourselves would like to show our work’. More than a group of individual artists, Sorbus are both a local and an international network of like-minded people. In their approach to making and presenting work, Sorbus offers a point of reflection on professionalised and institutionalised systems of art. Having evolved within the art world over the last decade they are now moving away from the gallery context and taking us on the journey with them.

Sorbus challenges separate, neatly defined categories that constitute self and collectively-made art by highlighting how each artist's individual practice is altered, blurred and re-negotiated and everything is made in contact with another.

‘Wild is the Wind’ (2019) was commissioned by the Finnish Cultural Institute in London, as part of their Möbius Fellowship Program. Script development is further supported by AVEK. The UK premiere of ‘Wild is the Wind’ and specially arranged live programme is co-commissioned and co-produced by Forma Arts & Media and AQNB Productions, supported by Frame Contemporary Art Finland.