Except This Time Nothing Returns From The Ashes (2022) dir. Gouled Ahmed & Asmaa Jama
Except This Time Nothing Returns From The Ashes (running time 16 minutes, 18 seconds) is an experimental moving image piece made in collaboration with poet and filmmaker Asmaa Jama, commissioned by Spike Island Gallery, Bristol UK.
Shot in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia the film follows five ghostly, glitchy presences haunting a city. Inspired by a situated East African reading of the African photography studios of the past, the work explores the themes of self-portraiture, archiving and memory to consider who is excluded from institutionalized national narratives and why.
Combining poetry, experimental sound, animation, and collected familial photographs the film opens a portal to remembering those who would otherwise be forgotten, those systematically rendered peripheral. Using a magical realist lens, the film explores photography’s potential to build & corrupt canons. We harness the power of self-portraiture as an act of resisting these erasures.
Directed by: Asmaa Jama & Gouled Ahmed
Story by: Asmaa Jama and Gouled Ahmed
Text written + voiced by: Asmaa Jama
Cinematography: Mikael Techane
Production coordinators: Gebriel Balcha& Nebiyu Bekele
Sound design + composition: Sami El Enany
Camera Assistants: Fasika Gebru, Nouyadeen Nadi, Saboon, Nasradeen Musa
Costume design: Gouled Ahmed & Tailoring: Bisrat Negusie
Rediet Haddis (standing center) : Requiem
Anatoli Bulti (standing center) : Ruin
Alazar Dagne (sitting center) : Still-here
Hamdiya Sherif (far right) : Glyph
Makeup Artist: Asmaa Jama
Additional camera-VHS: Mikael Techane & Gebriel Balcha
Color grading: Mikael Techane
Edited by: Mikael Techane, Asmaa Jama & Gouled Ahmed
Music from: Amin Xaji Cusmaan c/o British Library, John Low collection, voices Amin Xaji Cusmaan, Kuusow Kurtunwaarey, Ahmed Awad
Archival photos c/o Roda Ali Dalmar and Mohamed Jama
Except This Time Nothing Returns From The Ashes Structure
Medium: Installation
Size: 444cm x 375cm 588cm
Year Of completion: Originally made in 2023, reproduced again in 2024.
Additional information: Installation shots from my solo exhibition with Asmaa Jama commissioned by Spike Island Gallery Bristol 2023, curated by Carmen Julia. Also shown at The Africa Center, NYC, curated by Evelyn Owen, 2024.
The film is situated in an octagonal structure, constructed out of CNC 15mm sheets with cut outs of geometric designs reminiscent of the patterns found in the film, as well as the vernacular architecture & the built environment of the Horn of Africa.
Except This Time Nothing Returns From The Ashes x All About Love Commision Asmaa Jama
Medium: Film-stills
Year of completion: 2023
Additional information: The work for the ‘All About Love’ commission is a selection of photographic stills from my collaborative film with Asmaa Jama Except This Time Nothing Returns From The Ashes, captioned with fragments of Asmaa’s poetic text. The images feature scenes where the characters face the camera, and question the viewer's gaze and complicity in their erasure and annihilation.
The commission is interested in the possibility of disseminating the film in alternate formats. The possibility of capturing the narrative in stills, paying homage to the idea of photography and self portraiture, and the ways communities have archived themselves and their stories.
Except This Time Nothing Returns From The Ashes trailer