In collaboration with the Ian White Estate, Open City is pleased to present the fourth Ian White Lecture, given by writer Esther Kinsky. This ongoing series celebrates the provocative and enquiring spirit of artist, performer, curator, educator and writer Ian White (1971–2013). The invitation to write and present a new lecture is extended to an individual whose work shares and carries forward this spirit.

In her talk “Entering the Gaze”, Esther Kinsky will speak to the ways that films such as James Benning’s 13 Lakes (2004) and Chantal Akerman’s D’Est (1993) can teach us, spectators, to abandon bias and preconceived notions in our own way of looking at the world, opening our minds to the gaze of the filmmaker.

Esther Kinsky grew up by the river Rhine and lived in London for twelve years. She is the author of six volumes of poetry, five novels (Summer Resort, Banatsko, River, Grove, Rombo), numerous essays on language, poetry and translation and three children’s books. She has translated many notable English (John Clare, Henry David Thoreau, Iain Sinclair) and Polish (Joanna Bator, Miron Białoszewski, Magdalena Tulli) authors into German. Both River and Grove won numerous literary prizes in Germany. Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, her latest book Seeing Further is “a powerfully eloquent declaration of love to the cinema and the collective experience of watching.”

Presented in collaboration with LUX.