Film and Video Umbrella are thrilled to be partnering with Arnolfini throughout Spring and Summer 2026 to present FVU New Takes. Each month FVU New Takes will showcase a newly commissioned work in Arnolfini’s Dark Studio on Level 2.
About the work
Using a monoprint printmaking technique to recreate archival footage, Sideweighs and Backwords forefronts the imperfect action of memory. In opposition to the immaculate reproduction of traditional print and digital media, human memory is exposed as a verb – a constant recreation of a sequence of events, a story we tell ourselves. The story told here is a movement between homeland and a new home, a constant traversing of terrain and terms.
Making this journey is an ill body, in splendour and dishevel. It is a body that places both language and narrative at stake. Displaced and mismatched text, accompanied by sound mirroring disordered thinking, means that access to the film is not easily negotiated. Ultimately, Sideweighs and Backwords offers a series of choices to its audiences, and invites them to decide how it is experienced.
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Sideweighs and Backwords (2026) has been commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella as part of FVU New Takes. FVU New Takes is supported by Jerwood Foundation. Exhibition partner: Arnolfini, Bristol. FVU and Arnolfini are supported using public funding by Arts Council England.
