Exhibitions Shireen Seno
Project Space Studio
"A child dies, a child plays, a woman is born, a woman dies, a bird arrives, a bird flies off (CCTV edition)," Mixed-media installation with 14-channel video, sound. © Shireen Seno. Courtesy of the artist.Project Space Residency
Shireen Seno is an artist and filmmaker whose work addresses memory, history, and image-making, often in relation to the idea of home. A recipient of the 2018 Thirteen Artists Award from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, she is known for her films which have won awards at Rotterdam, Punto de Vista, Shanghai, Olhar de Cinema, Vladivostok, Jogja-Netpac, and Lima Independiente and have screened at such festivals as New Directors/New Films, Yebisu International Festival of Art & Alternative Visions, Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin, and institutions including Tate Modern, UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, Portikus, NTU Center for Contemporary Art Singapore, Taipei National Center for Photography and Images, Museum of the Moving Image, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA), Seoul, Museum of Contemporary Art & Design Manila, and MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai. Seno is a 2022 Film Fellow of the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin program.
I have been working on a series of studies of the migration of birds in and out of the Philippines, inspired by memories of my father’s migration to the United States in the early 2000’s. Birds are like role models for humans—they find ways to survive by various means across varied terrain. I hope to bring together a mix of local birds and migratory ones, migrating across different generations of moving image media. What I do comes from a basic desire to make sense of things, to process the multitude of images and sounds that I encounter everyday and those that haunt me from memory. I believe the camera enables us to straddle that fine line between life and death. It’s kind of like picking a flower–it’s beautiful so you want to take it, but you’re killing it at the same time. This tension makes image-making so interesting.
This program is supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the New York State Legislature; the National Endowment for the Arts; the Max and Marian Farash Foundation; and Joy of Giving Something.
Shireen Seno is interviewed by Tara Nelson at her VSW Salon film screening.
Shireen's residency included research into VSW's 16mm collection, finding films to include in her "In Dialogue" screening. Here she views a film on the Steenbeck in the Media Transfer Lab.
Shireen's selfie with illuminated lantern slides, taken in the Still Image Archive at VSW during her residency.
During Shireen's residency, she explored the VSW lantern slide collection, finding images relevant to her practice and interest.