The second appointment of The Art Room, program of talks and video screenings conceived and curated by CURA. for Soho House Rome, presents the work of the multimedia artist Sara Sadik, in conversation with curator Martha Kirszenbaum. Halfway between fiction and documentary, her daily life experience, video games, science fiction and French rap, Sadik invents initiatory stories where young men play the main role trying to reach a physical and mental transformation.
The event is presented in the frame of a wide collaboration among private and public institutions including Basement Roma (Feb–April 2023), French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici (April 2023), Kunsthalle Lissabon (June–Sept 2023).
The Art Room is a bimonthly program curated by CURA. for Soho House Roma. (curamagazine.com)

Ultimate Vatos: Force & Honneur (Vol.1), 2022
Video
23’33’’
Ultimate Vatos: Force & Honneur (Vol.1) features a single character in a world which is both closed and isolated, where the sole reference point is a highly demanding competition. In this film, as in previous ones, the question of an individual identity being constructed through a series of trials is clearly present, as in an initiatory journey. During this trial, the character is completely alone, left to his own devices in the arena. The isolation inevitably leads him to internal monologues. Revealing his states of mind, he also conveys a collective voice, consisting of collages from numerous sources such as French rap as well as slogans taken from the Army’s advertising campaigns or the mottos of French Foreign Legion regiments.

Khtobtogone, 2021
Video 16’9’’
Khtobtogone is the intimate portrait of Zine, a 20 years old man in a quest of becoming the best version of himself, before asking for his girlfriend’s hand. Khtobtogone depicts his daily life, love story and friendships as well as emotional roller-coasters, torments and inner demons he has to continuously manage in order to regain self-confdence, self-love and self-esteem. Khtobtogone is inspired by real-life stories and words of Ahmed Ra’ad Al Hamid and Brian Chiappeta.

Carnalito Full Option, 2020
Video 20’
Carnalito Full Option is the second phase of Hlel Academy, a four-part project exploring teenage interactions and displays of emotions in young masculinity. Hlel Academy is a fictive training centre that welcomes those love has forgotten, heartbroken men between 16 and 20. Its academic program is based on emotional and sentimental rehabilitation with the goal of training the elite Hlels of tomorrow. Using the format of reality television, Carnalito Full Option is a real-life fiction in which five teenagers are isolated in an arena, cut-off from the outside world and competing against each other in trials for the title of ‘ideal gadjo’.

2ZDZ, 2019
Video 6’30
Zetla Zone is an anticipation project imagining a possible evolution of a lawless zone, in France, in the near future. Through an anthropological analysis, the Zetla Zone project explores the effects of neglect on a territory and its inhabitants, the notions of self-segregation, communitarianism and solidarity in a post-guerrilla climate as well as neo-colonialism in the era of virtual reality.

The Art Room is a program of talks and video screenings conceived by CURA./Basement Roma for Soho House Rome.