ICA is closed from the 30 May – 3 June inclusive.
Book tickets
Ancestral clouds Ancestral claims is a film and installation project by artist, filmmaker, and writer Arjuna Neuman and philosopher Denise Ferreira da Silva. Since 2016, the duo collaborates on a series of films, that each follow a classical element (water, earth, wind, fire) to help us reimagine the world speculatively and reparatively. Their ‘elemental cinema’ merges poetics and critical theory, to propose a poignant and emotional take on the ethical-political challenges of the global present, through human and non-human perspectives. Part documentary and part personal essay, their films transform our ways of seeing, knowing and being.
The third film in their series, Ancestral clouds Ancestral claims follows the wind and what it carries – from dust to clouds, ideas, stories and voices – as a guide and an analytical framework.
Filmed in Chile, in the Atacama desert it explores the entanglements and overlaps of historical events, past present and future, in this site.
Taking us on a visual journey through the ALMA large array facility, an international astronomical observatory, and the lithium mines of the Atacama, the film shows how material trajectories are deeply entwined with the pursuit of foundational ideas from the enlightenment, their mutation into aspects of modern neoliberal authoritarianism and their dissemination.
Timeless, plural, and untamable, the wind in virtue of the memories, particles, and ancestral claims it carries, acts as a prism that reveals that which is hidden in plain sight: the pillars of Western thought that sustain colonial legacies of inequality, racial exclusion and human extractivism.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva, Arjuna Neuman and Ella Fine.
The third film in their series, Ancestral clouds Ancestral claims follows the wind and what it carries – from dust to clouds, ideas, stories and voices – as a guide and an analytical framework.
Filmed in Chile, in the Atacama desert it explores the entanglements and overlaps of historical events, past present and future, in this site.
Taking us on a visual journey through the ALMA large array facility, an international astronomical observatory, and the lithium mines of the Atacama, the film shows how material trajectories are deeply entwined with the pursuit of foundational ideas from the enlightenment, their mutation into aspects of modern neoliberal authoritarianism and their dissemination.
Timeless, plural, and untamable, the wind in virtue of the memories, particles, and ancestral claims it carries, acts as a prism that reveals that which is hidden in plain sight: the pillars of Western thought that sustain colonial legacies of inequality, racial exclusion and human extractivism.
The screening will be followed by a conversation with Denise Ferreira da Silva, Arjuna Neuman and Ella Fine.
Arjuna Neuman is an artist, filmmaker, and writer and he is the co-founder of www.archiveofbelonging.org – a resource database for migrants and refugees. Neuman works with the essay as a guiding, multi-perspectival and inherently future-oriented form that underpins his experimental research and creative approach. As a writer he has published essays in Relief Press, The Journal for New Writing, VIA Magazine, Concord, Art Voices, Flaunt, LEAP, Hearings Journal, and e- flux. He studied at California Institute of the Arts.
Denise Ferreira da Silva is an artist and philosopher. She currently is the Samuel Rudin Professor in the Humanities at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures, at NYU. Her artistic and academic work reflect and speculate on questions crucial to contemporary philosophy, political theory, black thought, feminist thought, and historical materialism. She is the author of 'Toward a Global Idea of Race' (2007), 'Unpayable Debt' (2022) amongst many other titles.
Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva’s collaboration includes the film Serpent Rain (2016), 4 Waters-Deep Implicancy (2018), Soot Breath//Corpus Infinitum (2020), Ancestral Clouds Ancestral Claims (2023). Their films have been exhibited at major art venues such as MACBA (Barcelona); Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), the Pompidou Center (Paris), Whitechapel Gallery (London), The 56th Venice Biennale, The Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt (Berlin), Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), and more. In Februrary 2024, they opened a retrospective of their work at the Munch Museum in Oslo; in May 2024 the Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp opened a solo exhibition of their work. They have a forthcoming monograph published by Archive Books.
Ella Finer’s work in sound and performance spans writing, composing, and curating with a particular interest in how bodies acoustically disrupt, challenge, or change occupations of space. Her research continuously queries the ownership of cultural expression through sound; often through collaborative projects centring listening as a practice of deep attention, affiliation and reciprocity. She is working on a book of essays: Acoustic Commons and the Wild Life of Sound, while Silent Whale Letters, a correspondence project with Vibeke Mascini and edited by Kate Briggs, was published by Sternberg Press in 2023.
Denise Ferreira da Silva is an artist and philosopher. She currently is the Samuel Rudin Professor in the Humanities at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Literatures, at NYU. Her artistic and academic work reflect and speculate on questions crucial to contemporary philosophy, political theory, black thought, feminist thought, and historical materialism. She is the author of 'Toward a Global Idea of Race' (2007), 'Unpayable Debt' (2022) amongst many other titles.
Arjuna Neuman and Denise Ferreira da Silva’s collaboration includes the film Serpent Rain (2016), 4 Waters-Deep Implicancy (2018), Soot Breath//Corpus Infinitum (2020), Ancestral Clouds Ancestral Claims (2023). Their films have been exhibited at major art venues such as MACBA (Barcelona); Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna), the Pompidou Center (Paris), Whitechapel Gallery (London), The 56th Venice Biennale, The Haus Der Kulturen Der Welt (Berlin), Centre for Contemporary Art (Glasgow), and more. In Februrary 2024, they opened a retrospective of their work at the Munch Museum in Oslo; in May 2024 the Kunsthal Extra City in Antwerp opened a solo exhibition of their work. They have a forthcoming monograph published by Archive Books.
Ella Finer’s work in sound and performance spans writing, composing, and curating with a particular interest in how bodies acoustically disrupt, challenge, or change occupations of space. Her research continuously queries the ownership of cultural expression through sound; often through collaborative projects centring listening as a practice of deep attention, affiliation and reciprocity. She is working on a book of essays: Acoustic Commons and the Wild Life of Sound, while Silent Whale Letters, a correspondence project with Vibeke Mascini and edited by Kate Briggs, was published by Sternberg Press in 2023.
Book tickets
06:30 pm
Fri, 17 Jan 2025
Cinema 1
Ticket information
- All tickets that do not require ID (full price, disabled, income support) can be printed at home or stored in email
- For aged-based concession tickets (under 25, student and pensioner) please bring relevant ID to collect at the front desk before the event.
Access information
Cinema 1
- Both our Cinemas have step free access from The Mall and are accessible by ramp
- We have 1 wheelchair allocated space with a seat for a companion
- All seats are hard back, have a crushed velvet feel and they do not recline
- These are our seat size dimensions: W 42 x D 45 x H 52
- Arm rest either side of the seat dimensions: L 27 x W 7 x H 20
for the following requirements:
- We have unassigned seating. If you require a specific seat, please reserve this in advance
- Free for visitors where ticket prices are a barrier, please email
All films are ad-free and 18+ unless otherwise stated, and start with a 10 min. curated selection of trailers.
Members+ and all Patrons gain free entry to all cinema screenings, exhibitions, talks, and more.
Join today as a Member+ for £25/month.
no. 236848.