Magnum Photographer (and ex Magnum Photos President) Olivia Arthur, along with independent film maker Philipp Ebeling work under the banner Fishbar. For the past 11 years they have been collaborating with Rose Hill Records artists Nimzo Studio (Lee Westwood and Jules Arthur) to create short films, AV installations and other video work. These works have been screened all over the world, including Museum of Modern Art New York, Nuit Blanche Paris, Santiago and the Gulf States. Here we bring together a selection of this collaborative work for a night of short screenings, followed by a Q&A with the Artists.
The Stop Game (2021)
Commissioned by the Xunta de Galicia, Olivia’s short film takes us on the journey of a prisoner walking the Camino de Santiago de Compostella, where both her inner thoughts and the world around her become a hostile and unforgiving landscape. Intense, beautiful, unnerving, with haunting musical performances by vocalists Cate Ferris and Sebastian Charlesworth.
Sync / Unsync (2023)
The Psychologist Bessel Van der Kolk writes in his book The Body Keeps the Score about how traumatic stress throws us out of sync with ourselves and others by preventing us from knowing what we know and feeling what we feel. Initiated from an intense collaboration with pioneering UK improv vocalist Maggie Nicols, the video installation is a reflection of Van der Kolk’s ideas and Philipp’s interest in trying to understand how traumatic experiences affect and shape us. Three very different sets of people express their ways of finding release in front of the camera.
Maggie Nicols performing with an extended version of Sync / Unsync at Lake space in May 2024, with live soundtrack performance by Nimzo Studio
Stranger (2017)
In 1961 a boat carrying passengers between India and the Gulf was shipwrecked off the port of Dubai. An estimated 238 people lost their lives. But some bodies were never found and some families continue to search more than 50 years on. So what if someone could have survived? And what would they see if they came to the city now? The work has been exhibited at Cuadro Gallery in Dubai, at Fishbar and Plinth pop-up in London, at Gazebook festival in Sicily. The multimedia piece has been screened at MoMA in New York.
Tichan (2019)
This ongoing project and collaboration following the transition of Thibaut to Charlotte (and TiChan in-between) was initiated by Charlotte herself who wanted her process to be documented from beginning to end. A combination of stills and moving image, the work has been exhibited at the Nuit Blanche in Paris as a three-screen installation; at Tatiss Gallery in Lyon and at the Cinema Arlequin in Paris.
Plus a series of much shorter works and collaborative explorations.
Brighton-based audio explorers Nimzo Studio bridge together the worlds of electronic production and instrumental composition, into a musical language fuelled by artistry and experimentation. From deep grooves and melodic hooks to dream-like soundscapes and industrial noise, their work follows an ever-changing trail of exploration and genre-shifting, whilst carving out an alluring yet left-field soundprint that is idiosyncratic and distinct.
Through the obsession with synths and field recordings of pianist / viola player Jules Arthur, the Contemporary Classical composition and guitar virtuosity of Lee Westwood, and a shared history of recording and touring with bands such as Moulettes, Le Juki and Dizraeli & The Small Gods, Nimzo bring to the cutting room a diversity of musical influence and a long-term collaborative vocabulary that sets them apart.
Alongside a growing body of their own work, Nimzo have composed music for film, documentary, advert and installation, working closely with artists such as Magnum Photographry, the BBC, Christian Dior, Vanity Fair and directors Amaka Ugwunkwo and Akio Fukushima.
Nimzo Studio’s forthcoming eponymous EP series out on Rose Hill Records.
www.nimzostudio.com
“we love photography. we love making things. we love telling stories with photographs, both our own and other people’s. we love finding ways to make interesting installations in small spaces. we love bringing people together to look at and talk about pictures. we love making projects happen.we bring photography and books to different audiences. we love collaborating with musicians and poets. we sometimes also make beer.”
Fishbar is Magnum photographer Olivia Arthur and photographer and experimental film maker Philipp Ebeling. Together they run a publishing house for photo books, a gallery and make work both independently and together.
Olivia Arthur began working as a photographer in 2003. Since then her work has explored themes such as: women and cultural divides (Jeddah Diary, 2012); Dubai and the history of the Middle East (Stranger, 2015), sexuality in India (In Private/Mumbai, 2019) and through her commissions for Hull, City of Culture, and the Rome Collection about young people and intimacy during Covid. Her practice has also moved into an examination of the human relationship to the body, people’s physicality and its intersection with technology, working predominantly with large-format portraiture. Olivia gave a TED talk on this subject in 2020. She enjoys exploring different mediums and has made two short films and a children’s book using collage.
Philipp Ebeling has published 3 photo books : Closer (2021) a look at the new reality of family life in Lockdowns – the small things that fall by the wayside in the big journey of having a family; Land Without Past (2017) investigating the sense of identity linked with rural German life; and London Ends (2019) where Philipp walked in a circle around the whole of greater london, documenting the outskirts and forgotten communities the make up the london suburban sprawl. Recent screenings of his experimental films have been in Lake Gallery, London and at Goldsmiths.
BIOG