Hugh Lane Gallery and Create are delighted to announce Indian-origin filmmaker Jijo Sebastian as the successful recipient of this commission for 2022–2024.
Jijo Sebastian is a collaborative filmmaker with more than ten years of experience in participatory, collaborative, and transcultural filmmaking in community-based contexts.
He was awarded an Artist in the Community Scheme Project Realisation Award in 2015 and an Arts Council ‘Next Generation’ Bursary Award’ in 2016, in addition to an Arts Participation Bursary (2020).
He has co-written, directed and edited eight short films and one telefilm collaborating with individuals, groups, and families from the Keralite Indian community and others in Ireland. Selected films have been screened at international film festivals.
His practice and films find coherence in their shared immigrant-oriented themes, participatory methodologies, and suburban Dublin geographical context.
The key concerns that underpin his practice and current thematics are transcultural space, intercultural relations, the complex nature of immigrant identity, and its trajectory of transitioning.
Jijo intends to use this commission opportunity to engage with families from diverse backgrounds in Dublin city, working collaboratively to make a film sharing stories happening in the liminal space between cultures, and communities.
Jijo will bring these families together into a common creative space where stories and experiences will be shared to generate connections across differences. Conceptually this will be an opportunity to explore, question, and mediate the existence and nature of a transcultural space and interrogate how the global and local both affect communities in Dublin in transcending cultural boundaries.
This work is intended to forge true and lasting relationships and go past the ‘event’ culture by practicing intercultural living via organising social activities with and among members of the group and participating in cultural events of different communities.
“Hugh Lane Gallery is delighted to once again collaborate with Create and congratulates Jijo Sebastian as the successful recipient. As a filmmaker, Jijo’s work is deeply embedded in transcultural communities and the complexities of migrant identities. Through his collaborative and engaging approaches to filmmaking, he pushes the conventional boundaries of the medium and we are very excited to be working with him on this commission”. Said Barbara Dawson, Director, of Hugh Lane Gallery
“Create is really delighted to work with Hugh Lane Gallery in awarding Jijo Sebastian this important commission and supporting him during the process ahead. Our establishment of this commission speaks to both Create and Hugh Lane’s commitment to durational and relational collaborative work, in place. Jijo is recognised as a talented collaborative filmmaker with an inspiring track record of meaningful engagement with diverse communities. We look forward to seeing him bring his unique approach to this timely work, and the communities of Dublin city”. said Damien McGlynn, Director, of Create
Hugh Lane Gallery and Create will support Jijo by facilitating an inclusive and intersectional creative axis where art making, co-production, learning and knowledge exchange are the principles on which the relationship between Jijo and the community is built, facilitating meaningful and in-depth engagement with the diverse communities of Dublin 1 and the wider Dublin City Council administrative area.