How do we construct history? What is a historical moment? Can film (or video) be history? These are some of the questions raised by „Whose History?”, a series of four screenings, one performance in collaboration with the American artist Sharon Hayes, a profile screening of work by the British artist Lis Rhodes and a panel discussion, curated by Ian White, at the 54th International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

History is dependent on authority. It is written, but is received as incontrovertible fact. This is both its power and the reason why it must be questioned. „Whose History?” presents works from the late 1960s and 70s along with pieces by younger artists to ask these questions: what is a historical moment? what is a portrait? what is a history book? how do we, watching these works in the cinema, constitute history?

The programme was inspired by Lis Rhodes 1979 catalogue text for the „Film as Film” exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London of the same year. In it she contests the representation and participation of women in this particular exhibition, the show's emphasis on formalism and the underlying (ideological) structure and first asked the question „Whose History?”. An integral part of the Oberhausen programme is a screening of two works from  1978 and 1988, and the premiere of a new work, Still by Lis Rhodes. A panel discussion on 5 May that explores the ways in which history might be made completes the programme.

The curator: Ian White is Adjunct Film Curator for Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, an independent curator, writer and artist.

Guests in Oberhausen include Ann Demeester, Kenneth Goldsmith, Malcolm Le Grice, Emma Hedditch, Lis Rhodes, Emily Roysdon, Mike Sperlinger, Emily Wardill.