Switzerland Tourism to Premiere New Art Film in NYC
LGBTQ+ travelers from all corners of the world visit New York City each year to immerse themselves in its unique culture, culinary excellence, vast queer scene, world-renowned theater, and general celebration of the arts. Switzerland Tourism is looking to capitalize on the city’s status as an artistic mecca with the premiere of celebrated artist Julianknxx’s In A Dream We Are At Once Beautiful at the Foley Gallery from September 9-11. Switzerland Tourism hopes to inspire travelers to visit Switzerland, where the film was shot and produced.
Julianknxx draws on West African traditions of oral history to reframe how we construct both local and global perspectives. He does this through a body of work that challenges fixed ideas of identity and unravels linear Western historical and socio-political narratives, attempting to reconcile how it feels to exist primarily in liminal spaces. He is currently showing in the exhibition Air at Utah Museum of Fine Arts, USA (2022), as well as in The London Open at Whitechapel Gallery, UK (2022). Born in 1987 in Sierra Leone, Julianknxx now lives and works in London, UK.
The poet, visual artist and filmmaker was invited earlier this year by Switzerland Tourism to conduct research and make work in four separate Swiss cities – Zurich, Geneva, Basel, and Lausanne. Shot in Switzerland, the film, In A Dream We Are At Once Beautiful, examines the lines between reality and fantasy, and our ability to dream on our own terms – asking, whose dreams are we attempting to live?
Presented as a two-channel film, shot in 2.39:1 widescreen, In A Dream We Are At Once Beautiful offers a series of rich vignettes that play with the integration of nature and urbanity within the four Swiss cities. The work is punctuated with stanzas from Julianknxx’s poem, “As Long As The Sun Lasts”, and an original score born from a collaboration between the artist and the musician, anaiis. The camera slowly flows toward and through spaces as though it has been seduced by the setting – leaving the viewer to question whether the film’s cast members are subjects or protagonists as they float, stand, and move through the landscape.
“Swiss boutique cities like Zurich, Geneva, Lausanne, and Basel provide a wide range of art, culture, and architecture,” says Claudio Zemp, Director Americas of Switzerland Tourism. “Cultural offerings are found alongside proximity to nature. Through the lens of the extraordinarily perceptive and talented artist Julianknxx, Switzerland Tourism intends to cast new light on Swiss cities.”
The exhibition of In A Dream We Are At Once Beautiful will be free to the public. For more information and to register for free tickets click here.
