by Megan-Leigh Heilig, 2019, 15'
Presented at Lo schermo dell'arte 2020The film is part of VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images - 9th edition
Divided into chapters, the film documents a decisive moment in the artist’s life: her last days with her partner in South Africa before their departure. The artist has to move to Belgium for work; her partner, whose visa expired, must return to Namibia, where homosexuality is illegal. Interspersing intimate shots with travel scenes, The Politics of Choice and the Possibility of Leaving combines aspects of the artist’s private life in a poetic and delicate way. The film is a political reflection
on the right to love and explores the emotions and violence related to national identity and physical and imaginary borders.
Megan-Leigh Heilig (1993, South Africa/Germany). Her work is confrontational and provocative, but also always intimate and personal. It is concerned with political and social realities, which are translated in art works through her own private experiences. She grew up in Johannesburg and graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BFA; she completed her MFA at UCT; and completed a 2-year residency at the HISK in Gent. Megan has exhibited in the Seven Hills 2nd Kampala Biennale 2016 curated by Elise Atangana; in the Digital Africa projects between YaPhoto and Open Source curated by Christine Eyene in 2017; in 2018 she showed in a group exhibition titled Somewhere In Between at BOZAR in Brussels; Feminist Art Prize exhibition held at IKOB in Eupen 2019, 21st Biennial Contemporary Art Sesc_Videobrasil | Imagined Communities 2019-2020, and a group exhibition titled Together at MHKA in August 2020.