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AWORDINYOURLENS
ARTIST RUNA ISLAM ON HER ADVENTURES IN FILM
INTERVIEW
una Islam has been making a name for Rherself with film – and now that’s quite
literally the case. The artist’s latest work, a punning meditation on the lan- guage of film, includes a short where
her camera painstakingly spells the word “cinematography”, letter by letter.
“A camera records, so I wondered if it could also write or draw,” reflects Islam, one of this year’s quartet of Turner Prize nominees.
“It began in New Zealand where I was working with a motion control pioneer, who had collaborated with Peter Jackson on all his pictures, everything from The Frighteners to King Kong. We have the camera curling around, ascribing the initial “c” with tilting and panning shots. There’s something almost human about it, like a gesture.”
Just back from Italy, where she has been working on the next chapter of this project, Islam’s collaborator on the project is once again DP Mattias Nyberg using Fujifilm stock. “This is the fifth year I’ve worked with Matthias and he’s really a warrior,” she enthuses.
“He tries not only to get the idea and work with me on it, but he also guards the idea. So if we’re working with a large crew
I can hear him reinterpreting it, and giving some pretty interesting descriptions while turning an idea about film language into crew language – such as, “we’re just going to hold the camera like this, then swing it around, aimlessly,’” she laughs.
Born in Bangladesh, Islam now lives and works in London, and has been fascinated by film since her teens, with French New Wave directors such as Alan Resnais amongst her earliest influences. However, her movie tastes range from Dennis Hopper circa Easy Rider to Michael Winterbottom, while one of her earli- est works, Tuin, was a recreation of a moment from Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Martha.
Darkly pretty, and very good fun, Islam’s fast-talking animation is a marked counterpoint
to her cerebral, minutely observed artworks, which are compassionate yet unsettling.
Elegant moments of teacup vandalism, painterly portraits of pensive young women abruptly interrupted, and actors caught in a rehearsal that may itself be a performance for the camera - these are all Islam moments, captured on film.
She has been with the White Cube gallery for six years and also exhibits abroad, partici- pating in events such as the Venice Biennale, and she’s about to start work on a group com- mission of 15 filmmakers and five artists, in- cluding Aki Kaurismaki and Guillermo Del Toro, each contributing a three minute seg- ment to make up a full-length feature consid- ering the Human Rights Declaration.
An artist who enjoys working on the spur of the moment, she singles out Fujifilm stock for praise not only because it was the stuff of her first reel as a student, but also for its im- pressive durability, tested when she impul- sively decided to shoot a 16mm project in Bangladesh by dint of borrowing a camera from a local.
The footage she shot became one of her most talked-about works, the First Day Of Spring, a beguiling open-ended piece where local rickshaw drivers were instructed to do nothing.
“The most difficult bit was sourcing stock, but in the end a man from a film commission said he had some rolls of stock and took me to his office, pulled open a drawer and there were rolls of Fujifilm. But it was really hot weather and I said, “shouldn’t this be in a fridge or something?” And they said, “Oh there’s a fan on in that room” and pointed at this very old and pathetic-looking fan,” she laughs.
“I was resigned to the idea that the stock might be discoloured, but in the light of Bangladesh, in fact, it really brought out these marvellous evocative reds of dusk, with the light coming through in shards.” SIOBHAN SYNNOT
“A CAMERA RECORDS, SO I WONDERED
IF IT COULD ALSO WRITE OR DRAW.”
Photo main: Runa Islam by Lisa Thanner; top: How Far To Faro 2004-2005; above right: Runa Islam (all images are © the artist and
various photo credits to Andy Keate, Gerry Johansson, Stephen White, Runa Islam, all courtesy Jay Jopling/White Cube London); top right: DP Mattias Nyberg
FUJIFILM MOTION PICTURE • THE MAGAZINE • EXPOSURE • 13