In partnership with BlackStar Projects, FWM is proud to present Revival!, an audio-visual meditation celebrating the visual and sonic culture of shared Black spiritual experience. The installation is part of BlackStar’s efforts to provide engaging programming that extends beyond their annual film festival, hosted in Philadelphia each summer.
Revival!, featuring an audio-visual mix by filmmaker and artist Rashid Zakat, is an attempt to reimagine and practice what collective joy and resilience look like in times of crisis. Subtly drawing upon José Esteban Muñoz’s notion of ecstasy as “an invitation, a call to a then-and-there, a not-yet-here… a collective potentiality,” Revival! treats ecstasy not only as a corrective balm to injury but a world-making claim to the right of life, imagination, and joyful expression, an especially critical response to our current moment.
Featured on a grid of video monitors in FWM’s front window on Arch Street in Center City, the accompanying soundtrack for Revival! is projected onto the street (during museum hours), also inviting viewers to scan a QR code to access the Revival! stream from their personal devices anytime, anywhere. The installation is meant to be iterative, with evolving content to be featured over the course of its run through early June. To see more of Zakat’s work, visit Rashid.tv.
About BlackStar Projects
BlackStar Projects, home of the annual BlackStar Film Festival, celebrates and provides platforms for visionary Black, Brown, and Indigenous artists. They produce year-round programs including film screenings, exhibitions, an annual film festival, a filmmaker seminar, a film production lab, and a journal of visual culture. These programs provide artists opportunities for viable strategies for collaborations with other artists, audiences, funders, and distributors.
