Politics has always been a major concern in my creative practice: initially in dance and physical theatre, and since 2006 as part of my main area of practice: film and video. However, I’m not only interested in representing the political actuality, rather, I’m interested in the politics of representing that actuality. In that sense, the focus of my attention is on the political implications of film’s construction, and particularly on the relationship between the film/video work and its viewer. My work aims to be reflexive and critical of its own making process, to open up a dialectical space for the viewer to engage with the work. Both of the videos I’m sharing here are outcomes of my practice-based PhD project, which establishes the aesthetic terms of an experimental political cinema practice that is ethically and politically true to the political position it takes.

Deniz Johns is a film and video artist and practice-based researcher. Before receiving her MA from the Royal College of Art in 2012, she studied film, choreography, theatre and linguistics in Turkey, Poland, Japan and the UK. She is currently undertaking her PhD by practice, which revolves around modes of political aesthetics and filmic constructions in experimental film and video in Britain. Her work has been shown in national and international venues including: CineCycle, Toronto; Goethe Institute, Ankara; Whitechapel Gallery, Serpentine Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Close-up Film Centre and the Roundhouse, London. She is a founding member of collective-iz, which is a London-based artist collective working within the context of experimental film, video and performance.