For Immediate Release

NLS partners with Creative Sounds to celebrate World Peace Day, 21st September 2013, with a unique global film project films4peace, sponsored by PUMA

Download Word doc of press release here

Kingston, Jamaica, September 11, 2013 — For World Peace Day on 21st September, New Local Space partners with Creative Sounds to present Art: Films: Peace a screening of short films exploring Peace, which includes films4peace (an annual, unique short film commission by PUMA), and work by four Jamaican artists.

Now in its third year, the films4peace project is curated by Mark Coetzee, ex-Director of the Rubell Family Collection, supported by PUMA and produced by Shooting People. It features some of today’s most innovative contemporary artists all of whom are asked to visually interpret the subject of peace.

These short films are released annually, on World Peace Day, both physically at cultural and educational venues globally, and online via websites, blogs and media channels. The films are live screened at hundreds of cultural venues, from Human Rights Festivals to major museums public spaces, youth leadership conferences and new media centres, from Dakar, Senegal to Miami, USA to Kashmir, India - in 2012, screenings spanned across 23 countries.

Among the films commissioned by seven fantastic artists is Wilmer Wilson IV past NLS artist-in-residence. These artists explore and interpret the subject of Peace to catalyze discussion and action, starting -- but not ending -- on World Peace Day.

This year, seven acclaimed artists have been commissioned to create short films around the subject of peace: Rob Carter, Wilmer Wilson IV, Athi-Patra Ruga, Zanele Muholi, Anthony Goicolea, and Assume Vivid Astro Focus.

In addition to the films commissioned from PUMA, NLS will be screening four short films exploring notions of peace by up and coming Jamaican talents: Nile Saulter, Storm Saulter and Varun Baker.

The event is presented by NLS in partnership with Creative Sounds Limited with the support of the National Gallery of Jamaica and PUMA Vision.

About the Artists:

Zanele Muholi is a multi-award winning, highly provocative and exceedingly in demand South African photographer. Muhol's work is mostly about increasing the visibility of gay and transgender culture in the black community and she has drawn considerable attention to the practice of "queericide" – people who are killed via gender related hate crimes.

Fellow South African Athi‐Patra Ruga is fast becoming an exciting rising star in performance art. Ruga himself dresses up in a spectacular array of costumes, inserting himself, or rather the characters he is playing, into challenging situations. He pulls together film, fashion and photography to make thought provoking, striking pieces relating to cultural identity as a hybrid construct.

23 year old Wilmer Wilson (Washington, USA) is a recent photography graduate whose card was marked when the prestigious Conner Contemporary gallery singled him out as one to watch and invited him to debut his challenging first collection. In creating 'Domestic Exchange' Wilson found his 3D voice to make live sculptures using every day objects with low cultural value to make poignant points around freedom, choice, race.

Over the past decade, New York based Cuban American Anthony Goicolea has gained a reputation as the consummate storyteller. Having created a significant body of work which has gathered critical acclaim and found its way into numerous galleries both locally and internationally, Goicolea's multimedia works are enigmatic, mysterious, ambiguous, humorous, unsettling, and provocative.

Brooklyn-based Englishman Rob Carter has a knack for exposing landmarks and iconic structures from above while using his often comedic but always thoughtful knife (literally and figuratively) to create collages of the original material. Whether its placing the unofficial Church of England (the home of footballers Manchester United) in Canterbury Cathedral, the home of the actual Church of England or placing imagery literally among plants and documenting its growth, his work is thought provoking and engaging.

First initiated by Brazilian-born artist Eli Sudbrack in 1994 as a professional tag, assume vivid astro focus is now a continuously evolving international group of artists known for creating multi-sensational mash-ups of graffiti, disco worship, gay porn and carnival in the form of large-scale installations and performance art. They are included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawing Collection.

Nile Saulter is a cinematographer, director, editor, and founding member of New Caribbean Cinema. He graduated from the New York Film Academy at King’s College, London in 2004. His commercial clients include Pepsi, Gatorade, Red Bull, Digicel, PSI and Island Outpost. His short films have been exhibited at The British Museum in London and the Michael Werner Gallery in New York, and screened at festivals in Toronto, Nigeria, Trinidad, Barbados, Cuba, St Lucia, Jamaica, and London, where his short film Coast won the award for Best Cinematography at the Portobello Film Festival in 2011. He has directed and codirected music videos for Bounty Killer and Skygrass, in addition to creating video art. Nile recently returned from Senegal, where he conducted interviews and shot footage for the Puma-sponsored One People documentary project to commemorate Jamaica's 50th Anniversary. He’s recently gotten into fashion film productions also, and has shot two for the Lubica and We Are Massiv brands respectively. Nile has just completed his first feature film script for which pre-production will begin in the summer of 2013.

Storm Saulter is a visual artist, screenwriter, cinematographer, and film director. Born in Negril, Jamaica, he received formal film training at The Los Angeles Film School graduating in 2001 with a focus in Cinematography and Editing. His commercial clients include companies such as ROOTS Canada, Red Bull, Nestle, Red Stripe Beer, Atlantic Records, Warner Music Canada, Sandals Resorts International, Martha Stewart, and The Hilton. His images have appeared in Rolling Stone, The Village Voice, and Trace magazine. Storm has exhibited his experimental films at The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The British Museum, and the National Gallery of Jamaica to name a few. His work has also been featured in a number of international art fairs such as Art Basel, Berlin Art Fair, The Caribbean Biennial, ARCO, and LOOP Barcelona to name a few. Saulter is the co-founder of New Caribbean Cinema, a pioneering effort to showcase the next generation of talented Caribbean filmmakers through the creation of uncompromising Narrative Films and Documentaries. Saulter received the 2011 Jamaica Gleaner Honour Award for his work in developing Jamaica’s Film Industry. The Jamaica Observer has named him one of his country’s most influential people and he was recently identified by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica as one of the 50 under fifty business leaders shaping Jamaica's future. Storm wrote, directed, and served as cinematographer on the multi award-winning feature film,"Better Mus' Come". Critics have recognized "Better Mus' Come" as heralding a new movement of independent filmmaking throughout the Caribbean.

To hear him tell it, Varun Baker owes his photographic talent to a genetic twist of fate that had him wearing glasses since the third grade. He claims that "the semi-blind learn to better appreciate what they see." And he has seen plenty. The son of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, he was born in Brazil and since then has lived in Jamaica, the USA, Italy, Bermuda and Canada. He got his first camera at nine, a pink, plastic point and shoot. Since then, he has been using photography as a way to immerse himself in each new place, engaging the cultures and people that occupy them. His first group exhibition at the Bolivar Gallery in November 2011 was well received. Though he has submitted work to the JCDC Festival exhibition, this will be his first time showing a cohesive body of work at the National Gallery of Jamaica.

films4peace celebrates World Peace Day - an international United Nations day of ceasefire, and a day for individuals, organizations and countries to demonstrate acts of peace. Each artist will visually interpret the subject of Peace to create a short film, which, in keeping with the spirit of the commission, will be gifted to the world, within public domain and free from screening fees, as tools for peace. By releasing these short films as broadly as possible, on multiple live and virtual platforms, the aim is to effect positive social change and broaden the discussions around peace globally.

The films include 35 mm live action, experimental animation and fine art approaches. The artists are selected for the quality and scope of their work and their sensitivity in interpreting the theme. Editors Notes:

World Peace Day takes place on 21 September each year, and is the United Nations international day of ceasefire, and a day for individuals, organizations and countries to demonstrate acts of peace.

Links for Posting:

The films created for films4peace 2011 and 2012 are available to view and embed via the project’s Vimeo page: https://vimeo.com/films4peace

NLS
New Local Space is a contemporary visual art initiative in Kingston, Jamaica that supports the work of visual artists committed to breaking new ground in their chosen disciplines, and to connect such artists to the global contemporary art community. Our programs includes cuting-edge exhibitions, artist residencies, studio rental and webcasts about art.

PUMA
PUMA is one of the world's leading Sportlifestyle companies that designs and develops footwear, apparel and accessories. It is committed to working in ways that contribute to the world by supporting Creativity, SAFE Sustainability and Peace, and by staying true to the principles of being Fair, Honest, Positive and Creative in decisions made and actions taken. PUMA starts in Sport and ends in Fashion. Its Sport Performance and Lifestyle labels include categories such as Football, Running, Motorsports, Golf and Sailing. Sport Fashion features collaborations with renowned designer labels such as Alexander McQueen and Mihara Yasuhiro. The PUMA Group owns the brands PUMA, Cobra Golf and Tretorn. The company, which was founded in 1948, distributes its products in more than 120 countries, employs about 11,000 people worldwide and has headquarters in Herzogenaurach/Germany, Boston, London and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit http://www.puma.com

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