Sheffield DocFest at Site: Here in This Room / In Posse

BOOK YOUR TICKETS FOR HERE IN THIS ROOM/ IN POSSE
Visitors are advised that Charlotte Jarvis’ installation at Site Gallery as part of ‘Here in This Room/ In Posse’ features nuts. Visitors with a nut allergy are advised to consider this risk.

Book tickets for In Posse screening at Showroom Cinema
Sign up for In Posse workshop series, Thesmophoria

Sheffield DocFest Arts Programme 2021:

Sheffield DocFest is an international film and arts festival with a mission to spark imaginations and empower our capacity for change by celebrating, championing and debating documentary film and art as a collective form of engagement.

DocFest looks to question the boundaries of documentary film through a programme that challenges trends, brings diversity and enriches debate. The festival invites audiences to engage with experiences and stories from different parts of the world and to join makers in inspiring moments.

The 28th edition will be a hybrid festival taking place 4–13 June, in Sheffield, in cinemas across the UK and online.

PLEASE NOTE: Tickets must be booked in advance to visit either of the following exhibitions at Site Gallery.

Here in This Room:

Here in This Room is a group exhibition at Site Gallery, S1 Artspace and on Sheffield DocFest’s Online Exhibitions Platform.

The exhibition focuses on the dual concepts of “domestic ambience” and “domestic surrealism”, considering the ways that artists have depicted or reimagined living spaces, domestic labour/routines, or many different ideas of home. Intended as a productive feedback loop with the extraordinary circumstances that led many of us to be “stuck at home” for many months on end, Here In This Room looks to the ways that artists have seen domestic spaces differently. Whether viewers encounter these works—produced across different years, geographies and perspectives—within the contemplative space a gallery or through our online while in their own domestic space, the aim is for these artists’ work to act as invitations to look at and appreciate space in new, unintended and even fantastical ways. 

Curated by Sheffield DocFest Arts Programme Curator Herb Shellenberger, this exhibition features works across different forms including moving image, installation, mixed media, sound and performance. 

Artists featured at Site Gallery: Anuj Malhotra, Basir Mahmood, Bassam Al-Sabah, Heesoo Kwon, Julie Ramage and Séamus Harahan.

In Posse:

In Posse is a new installation by artist Charlotte Jarvis that documents a quest she took to make semen from “female” cells. The work engages with semen as a revered magical substance, a totem of literal and symbolic potency, and aims to use art and science to disrupt the patriarchy. 

Whilst developing this multifaceted work across multiple years, countries, collaborations, Jarvis has been pregnant, experienced labour and become a mother. This iteration of the work is Jarvis’ attempt to reconcile these experiences with the process of making the project. It is also a manifesto of sorts, and a review of where the project stands in multiple senses: creatively, scientifically, ethically and personally.

A commission by Sheffield DocFest in partnership with Site Gallery, this new multi-channel video installation of In Posse represents a new form for the work.

In Posse will world premiere at Site, accompanied by a cinema presentation and a contemporary festival of Thesmophoria, a collaborative reimagining of the mysterious, ritualistic ancient Greek women-only event. In Posse was produced in collaboration with Dr. Susana Chuva de Sousa Lopes (Leiden University Medical Center), Kapelica Gallery/Kersnikova Institute (Ljubljana), MU Hybrid Art House (Eindhoven) and others.

The Sheffield DocFest Arts Programme —formerly Alternate Realities— includes a range of activities from exhibitions, talks, events and new commissions that showcase the best in international contemporary art practice and research. Artists selected for our programme work across many forms, disciplines and subjects, interrogating and expanding the boundaries of non-fiction through moving images, immersive technologies, sound, performance and other media. 

In total, this year’s Arts Programme will feature the work of over 30 artists from around the world, curated thoughtfully through a process of research, open call submissions and many discussions. The two exhibitions Here In This Room and Right on Time were conceived and curated in a quite collaborative process, in accordance with the festival’s image and core spirit. Careful consideration has been given to how to best present these works to audiences, whether shown in galleries or our online platform. 

Responding to the present moment with this year’s hybrid festival, our goal is to connect viewers from our surrounding neighbourhoods in Sheffield with those on other continents. We look forward to seeing you, whether online, IRL – or why not both!

For more information, including ticketing and screening times, please visit www.sheffdocfest.com