Shapeshifts presents films by Shambhavi Kaul and Bo Wang, each of which takes a distinct approach to exploring shifting temporalities and epistemologies. Kaul observes the current ecosystems around an ancient ruin and Wang is tracing the material and ancestral ghosts of colonial and contemporary wig trade. Depicting sonorous stones and shapeshifting hair, they conjure the many forms of sensorial debris that swirl together in the current world, no longer as relics, but as part of a complex assembly of life. As the ancient-future lives of these beings accumulate and conglomerate, the meanings of matter, decay, ruin, and trace all shift and reform in their own ways.
The screening will be introduced by Jo-Lene Ong, and Bo Wang will be in conversation (20 min) with Rachael Rakes and Julian Ross about his long-running body of work on the traces and hauntings of colonial pasts.
