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30 Jan – 9 Feb 2025

Francis Alÿs

Francis ALYS (1959, Belgium) relocated to Mexico City where he has lived and worked for the past 15 years. His practice embraces multiple media, from painting and drawing to video and photography. His work has been shown in MoMA in New York and the Tate Modern. Although based in Mexico City, he has done numerous projects over the last 20 years in collaboration with local communities around the world, from South America to North Africa and the Middle East. He has been working on several projects in Iraq since 2016, including the feature film Sandlines (2019), filmed in collaboration with the children of a small mountain village in the Nineveh province.

Filmography

(selection) Zocalo (2001), El Gringo (2004), Nightwatch (2006), Silence of Ani (2016), Sandlines (2019)

More info: Francis Alys

Francis Alÿs at IFFR

  • The Nightwatch

    Installation generated from the advanced CCTV (closed-circuit television) system of the National Portrait Gallery with the fox Bandit free at night

  • Zocalo

    In this 12-hour video documentary, we follow the shadow of a flagpole across a square in Mexico City in a pan of 3 degrees an hour. The visual dyna

  • Sandlines

    To understand their present situation, young children from a mountain village near Mosul re-enact the last century of Iraqi history.

  • El gringo

    The psychology of power in numbers – whether man or beast.

  • The Silence of Ani

    Between Armenia and Turkey lie the ruins of once bustling Ani. The silence is increasingly broken by birdsong. Has everything been staged?