Artists Film International 2026: A Kind of Power

A Kind of Power is an exhibition of video art, shown on Big Screen Southend, the outdoor screen beside Focal Point Gallery in Elmer Square. It is the 19th edition of Artists Film International, a decentralised curatorial platform convened by the London arts organisation Forma, in which each partner institution nominates an artist from its own context.

Focal Point Gallery presents this year's edition with Forma across two sites: the screenings in Southend, and an exhibition and two public events at FormaHQ in London. A separate selection has been made for each venue by the curators Nina Wong and Wade Osei Pryor, as part of Forma's collaboration with the MFA Curating course at Goldsmiths, University of London.

The films address the troubled legacies of representation and the conditions under which people, histories and places are made visible. They are grouped under three themes, looking, watching and witnessing, each treating the camera as an instrument of power in an age of surveillance and constant visibility.

The films:

Malik Irtiza, Thokei (2024), 4 min 46 sec. Selected by Project 88, Mumbai. A shadowy figure from the artist's childhood stories, once a songbird, roams across waterscapes in search of its stolen home and tongue.

ONGOING PROJECT, VIDEO NEWS (5th) (2018-2020), 5 min 50 sec. Initiated by Ieva Kotryna Ski with Akvilė Kabašinskaitė; selected by Sapieha Palace, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius. A wordless video conversation between people in different cities, shared by smartphone, in which major events sit alongside daily routine.

Ann Oren, Zoologische Gesellschaft (2021), 10 min. Selected by Neuer Berliner Kunstverein, Berlin. Footage of zoo animals and Berlin parks, edited so that the animals seem to form a society of their own, watching one another.

Razia Akbari, On the edge of Canvas (2025), 14 min 23 sec. Selected by the Center for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan in Exile. A layered search through history for forgotten patterns, unspoken names and unseen bodies.

Amaal Said, Open Country (2025), 13 min 10 sec. Selected by Forma and Focal Point Gallery. A Somali mother and daughter travel from London into the Kent countryside, in a film about visibility, belonging and migration in the British landscape.