Synopsis

The Season of Burning Things, is a moving-image collaboration between the two artists. Unfolding from the creators’ perspectives in the Somali diaspora, the piece takes the lead from East African mythos and Islamic imagery to explore mythmaking, Blackness; a ‘generation of ghosts’ and the transient spirit. Asmaa Jama is a Bristol-based Somali poet and visual artist. They are the co-founder of Dhaqan Collective, a feminist art collective, and were recently shortlisted for the Brunel African Poetry Prize and longlisted for the National Poetry Competition. 

Gouled Abdishakour Ahmed is an Addis Ababa-based Somali visual artist, stylist, costume designer and writer. Their ongoing self portrait series One Day These Names Will Be Ours explores the gaps that exist within formal language in the understanding of gender expressions outside of the gender binary. Jama and Ahmed previously collaborated on Before We Disappear, an interactive film exploring hypervisibility/invisibility and surveillance.

Director Biographies