Folkestone-based creative studio SD Projects opens its doors for a Film Night on Friday 6th February. Part of the three-day Zine Mela at The Old Post Office – a celebration of South Asia and its diaspora through zines, comics, small press, underground books, photography, illustration, prints, posters, and graphics – a series of short films will be screened including Screening Kindness vs Home Office by artist Hamja Ahsan, creator of Zine Mela, and Three Colours Green by Shahed Saleem and James Waiman.
A conversation between the film-makers will follow the screenings. Visitors are encouraged to explore the Zine Mela exhibition and reading room ahead of the screening (Free entry,11am - 6pm) .
All ticket revenues will be donated to Transport for Women in Ashford.
Hamja Ahsan
Hamja Ahsan is an award-winning artist, writer, public speaker, curator, activist and founder of DIY Cultures festival based in London, UK. Creator of Zine Mela, Hamja has collected zines for over 30 years, building an archive to promote zines as a form of resistance. His book Shy Radicals: Antisystemic Politics of the Militant Introvert (2017) was recently adapted into a film and translated into multiple languages. He has presented art projects at Document 15, Tate Modern, MOMA PS1, Hay Festival, touring his work from Peru to Pakistan. He recently co-curated the festival Radical Accessibility in Stedelijlk Museum, Amsterdam.
He awarded the Grand Prize at Ljubljana Biennial 2019 for the work Aspergistan Referendum. He was shortlisted for the Liberty award 2013 for creative campaign on extradition and human rights abuses under the war on terror.
Shahed Saleem
Shahed Saleem is an architect, author and Reader in Architecture at the University of Westminster. He works across disciplines to create installations, buildings, texts and drawings. He explores the built environment as a complex interplay of narratives as embodied through people’s individual and collective memories and imaginations.
Saleem co-curated the V&A Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2021 and his book ‘The British Mosque’ was published in 2018 by Historic England. His design work has been nominated for the V&A Jameel Prize 2013 and the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2016, and his research work won a RIBA Presidents Medal for Research commendation 2020 and was nominated for the Historic England Angel Award and the SAHGB Colvin Prize 2019.