John Smith was born in Walthamstow, London in 1952. He studied at North-East London Polytechnic and the Royal College of Art, after which he became an active member of the London Filmmakers’ Co-op. Inspired in his formative years by conceptual art and structural film, but also fascinated by the immersive power of narrative and the spoken word, he has developed a diverse body of work that subverts the perceived boundaries between documentary, fiction, representation and abstraction. Often rooted in everyday life and personal experience, his meticulously crafted films playfully explore and expose the language of cinema. johnsmithfilms.com
Zhana Ivanova was born in Russe, Bulgaria in 1977. She was educated at DasArts Advanced Research in Performance, Amsterdam and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam. Her artistic practice is multidisciplinary, with emphasis on performance. Using script-based approaches and performative mechanisms, featuring both rehearsed and unrehearsed performers, she induces live situations, where interpersonal relations are brought forward, unravelled and made to fluctuate. Language plays a key role, and power relations are of central interest. Her constructions are initially formal and rule-governed; yet within them she frequently exposes the ambiguity of her own rules. zhanaivanova.com
