Ways of Vanishing is a video program that brings together works by filmmakers from Latin America, the Global South and Lebanon. In four sessions, it proposes an aesthetic exploration of the process of vanishing. This unique condition entails the passage from the visible and existence to invisibility, a change of state that projects itself in multiple directions towards a languid disintegration.
The videos and films gathered herein question the ways in which this evanescent condition can be addressed. A culture, an ecosystem, a nation, a people and even a building may vanish in a given period of time or in an instant, but there are always ways of re-emerging, transforming impermanence into an opportunity for transmutation.
Art offers the potential for re-materialization through its expressive capabilities. In this context, it endeavours to explore ways of confronting the absence of what was once tangible and fully present, now reduced to a mere image in our minds.
Ways of Vanishing, akin to a slowly but steadily growing sprout, presents a plethora of possibilities for envisioning how to navigate radical processes of destruction and transformation. Conceived as memory exercises or critical oracles for contemplating the past, present, and future, these videos guide us through the experience of being human.
Image: Dala Nasser, The Dead Shall be Raised