RIVÂL, 2023
Single channel video, colour, sound, 18′ 32′′
Long-term loan from a private collection
RIVÂL unfolds as a poetic meditation on migration, embodied memory, and identity. Born in Guadeloupe and raised between the Caribbean and France, visual artist Radin approaches painting, dance, and choreography as interconnected languages. The film follows two rival dancers, Cibuqueira and Karukera, navigating migration and belonging in Greece. Their journey unfolds across transitional spaces—rooftops, bus stations, and the Mediterranean shore—where displacement becomes tangible, and shared narratives begin to take form. Movement emerges as a common language, transforming rivalry into dialogue. The film reflects broader themes of mobility, exchange, and layered identities across the Mediterranean. Influenced by Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, Radin, together with filmmakers Alexander Brack and Matthias Meisen, with whom he created the video, re-work representations of Black identity, allowing bodies to remain fluid and in motion. Within RIVÂL, tension and connection unfold through choreographic dialogue, placing personal and embodied narratives within broader cultural and historical continuities.
RIVÂL situates its protagonists within a broader reflection on displacement and myth. Greece, marked by layered histories of migration, is not merely a backdrop; it becomes an active terrain where identity is continuously negotiated. The two dancers move through bureaucratic spaces, domestic interiors, and open seascapes, embodying both tension and solidarity. Their rivalry is not simply oppositional but a dynamic exchange shaped by gesture, resistance, and mutual recognition. The film forms part of The Myth of Karukera and Cibuqueira, an ongoing project in which Radin explores the enduring relevance of myth in shaping contemporary experience. Radin’s interdisciplinary language—bridging choreography, painting, and storytelling—emerges vividly in the film’s visual rhythm. Fragmented bodies and movements marked by rhythmic tension echo his painterly approach, where form is animated by motion. He challenges fixed representations, reworking stereotypes into fluid, living expressions. Ultimately, RIVÂL proposes dance as a vital force: a means of survival, communication, and transcendence. Through movement, the dancers forge a shared mythology, connecting personal narratives to broader cultural and geopolitical entanglements across the Mediterranean and south-eastern regions.
Thomias Radin was born in 1993 in Abymes, Guadeloupe. He lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Alexander Brack is a cinematographer and filmmaker who was born in Germany and is based between Berlin and Athens.
Matthias Meisen is a director and visual artist based in Berlin.
