ART+FILM: Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel

International curator Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel (VIDEO 2026, Melbourne Art Fair) presents five films from artists around the world, reflecting on contemporary human conditions.

This selection of videos is inspired by the writings of author Octavia E Butler, as the works by Neil Beloufa, Meriem Bennani, Mohamed Bourouissa, Cécile B Evans and David Noonan explore the enigma of what it means to be human, at the crossroads of constraints, choices, systems, violence and experience that shape existences.

As our era urges us to question the meaning of our presence, these works hypothesise about our capacity to act, imagine, produce and reinvent. They meditate on the structures that surround us and the possibility of rethinking these frameworks. Conceived as an ode to the liberation of the imagination, this selection treats the unknown and the uncertain as fertile territories, precisely because they remain imaginable. These films propose a conversation about how we invent and inhabit our lives. Faithful to Lauren Olamina, the character imagined by visionary Octavia E Butler, they also call for cultivating empathy as a key to a desirable future.

The films included are:

• Genealogy of Violence (2024), Mohamed Bourouissa
• MEMORY! (2024), Cécile B Evans
• Cursed Objects (2022), Meriem Bennani
• Mnemosyne (2021), David Noonan
• Kempinski (2007), Neil Beloufa