Pressed Flowers of the Empire. Kadeem Oak in collaboration with Jonn Gale, 2025. Pressed Flowers of the Empire includes extracts from the film The Work of Kew c.1980, which was reproduced with the kind permission of the Board of Trustees of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
£10 / £5 MEMBERS / £5 CONCESSIONS
Join us for a screening of four short films, programmed in collaboration with The Arab British Centre.
The SLG’s longstanding South By South Film programme, dedicated to African cinema, spotlights North African film as part of our current exhibition, Yto Barrada: Thrill, Fill and Spill. This focus reflects Barrada’s deep commitment to the region and to North African cinema, most notably through founding La Cinémathèque de Tanger in the iconic 1930s building of Cinema Rif.
In dialogue with Barrada’s work and her ongoing explorations of plant histories and colonial legacies, this programme gathers films that highlight the garden as a site entangled in histories of dispossession and displacement while offering a fertile ground for resistance and renewal.
Moving through a series of landscapes, both real and imagined, these works retrace acts of care, remembrance, and radical storytelling. Some reclaim found footage or re-examine botanical archives, whilst others attend to intimate gestures, rituals, or unfamiliar species quietly growing in unexpected places. Together, these films ask: what do we cultivate in our gardens, of memory, of ritual, of life itself? Which roots do we inherit, and which do we carry forward?
This screening evening is curated by Kimiā an experimental film, photography, and media art collective based in Casablanca, Morocco.
PROGRAMME
Yasmina Benabderrahmane, Le Bouquet, 2022 (2 min,)
A short film capturing the director’s grandmother harvesting flowers, revealing intimacy and intergenerational acts of care through fragmented images.
Theo Panagopoulos, The Flowers Stand Silently, Witnessing, 2024 (17 min)
A Palestinian filmmaker based in Scotland reclaims a rarely seen Scottish film archive of Palestinian wildflowers, reflecting on image-making as both testimony and violence in human-land entanglements.
Kadeem Oak & John Gale, Pressed Flowers of the Empire, 2025 (12 min)
An essay film recontextualising Kew Botanical Gardens’ archival footage while reflecting on colonial legacies, human-plant relationships and institutional histories.
Nour Ouayda, The Secret Garden, 2023 (27 min)
Following Camelia and Nahla as unfamiliar plants erupt in their city, the film blends documentary and fiction to explore urban transformation and human-nature relations.
ABOUT THE ARAB BRITISH CENTRE
For over 40 years The Arab British Centre has encouraged understanding of the Arab world, and promoted Arab culture in the United Kingdom, supporting over 40 like-minded organisations since its establishment. As We Are, Might Have Been, and Could Be is their three-year visual arts and talent development programme, curated by Jessica El Mal, and other flagship programmes include the SAFAR Film Festival, the UK-wide festival of Arab cinema. Follow on Instagram @arabbritishcentre for upcoming events, opportunities and updates.
ABOUT KIMIĀ
Kimiā is an experimental film, photography, and media art collective based in Casablanca, Morocco. Rooted in handmade approaches to image-making and participatory media practices, the collective explores analog and digital media as tools for radical imagination and collective storytelling. Kimiā was founded in 2021 by Chahine Fellahi and Kaïs Aïouch. Since then, the collective has actively engaged in community-centered projects and developed participatory programs locally and internationally. Recent collaborations include the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech, the Cinematheque of Tangier, 421 Warehouse in Abu Dhabi, the Mosaic Rooms and the V&A Museum in London.
ABOUT SOUTH BY SOUTH
South by South is a quarterly film screening at the South London Gallery. This programme focuses on presenting cinema from Africa and the diaspora to audiences in the UK.
ACCESS
- If you would like to attend this event but the ticket price is a limitation please get in touch as we have reserved a number of free tickets for low-income individuals. Contact us at: mail@southlondongallery.org
- Room will be dark .
- Wheelchair access and accessible toilets are available at this site.
- Please contact mail@southlondongallery.org with any additional access requirements or questions.
TICKET INFORMATION
- Tickets are limited and sold online through Eventbrite.
- If an event is sold out, there may still be tickets on the door. These will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis and are not guaranteed.
- Please note the South London Gallery’s terms and conditions.
- All tickets purchased through the South London Gallery’s website and/or the South London Gallery’s Eventbrite account are non-refundable.