As part of the Radar programme for Gestation, we will screen Rubus I: Workers by Rehana Zaman, with an introduction from the artist. Rubus is an ongoing body of work that encompasses moving image, sound works, scripts and performances, in collaboration with artists, poets, writers, farm workers and plant microbiologists, that takes up a multidimensional conversation on the cultural resonances and social economies of monocrop farming.  

Commissioned by Hospitalfield in 2019 and first presented at Beer and Berries Festival in Arbroath, Scotland in 2022, Rubus I: Workers is a short conversation with several seasonal migrant workers on a local berry farm cataloguing their day-to-day experience picking fruit whilst living and working onsite on the farm. The drudgery of monotonous labour practices outsourced to workers under restrictive visa conditions is set against vistas of polytunnels and lush rubus (raspberry, strawberry and blackberry) fruits as plants are cultivated within an exhaustive cycle of production, distribution and waste. 

Biography

Rehana Zaman (she/her) is an artist living and working in London. Her work speaks to notions of kinship and sociality, seeking out possibilities of intimacy and transgression within hostile contexts. Conversation and cooperative methods sit at the heart of her films which extend into texts, performances and group work. She has exhibited widely in the UK and Internationally. Recent presentations include Serpentine Civic, London Film Festival, Tromsø Kunstforening, BEK - Bergen Centre for Electronic Arts, British Art Show 9 (Touring), ICA Miami, Trinity Square Video, Toronto, Borås International Sculpture Biennial and Artist Film International Whitechapel (Intnl Touring). In 2019 she co-edited Tongues with Taylor Le Melle and in 2023 received the 16th Film London Jarman Award. She is a member of not/nowhere artist workers cooperative. Her films are distributed by LUX.