Is capital the most primitive form of animism? The Centre pour la photographie Genève, presents the first institutional solo exhibition of Riar Rizaldi, emerging Indonesian artist and filmmaker. Rizaldi’s work forms narratives between fact and fiction, informed by the aesthetics of sci-fi cinema and contemporary visual culture to address the relationship between capital and technology from the perspective of the Global South. The four films selected for this exhibition, Kasiterit (2019), Tellurian Drama (2020), Becquerel (2021) and Pyroclasts Are Eloquent Storytellers (2022), give an introduction to Rizaldi’s unique and seductive universe — a cinematic experience mixing documentary with fictional elements to re-contextualising Indonesia within its often overlooked or understated position of global market significance and inviting us to meditate upon our relationships to the natural world. Each film is a short narrative, a theoretical fiction, drawing from the history and mythology of Indonesia, but quickly expanding in scope to reveal interactions and implications in the global world system. The work subtly critiques mentalities of “progress” for their resulting unsustainable and destructive loops of consumption. Rizaldi’s films position the scientific in the face of the magical – inviting us to contemplate timely social, political, and ecological issues — all while poetically suggesting the possibility of an alternative way of seeing.

Riar Rizaldi works as an artist and filmmaker. He works predominantly with the medium of moving images and sound, both in the black-box of cinema settings as well spatial presentation as installation. His artistic practice focuses mostly on the relationship between capital and technology, labour and nature, worldviews, genre cinema, and the possibility of theoretical fiction. His works have been shown at various international film festivals (including Locarno, IFFR, FID Marseille, Viennale, BFI London, Cinema du Reel, Vancouver, etc.) as well as Centre Pompidou Paris, NTT InterCommunication Center Tokyo, Taipei Biennial, Istanbul Biennial, Venice Architecture Biennale, Biennale Jogja, National Gallery of Indonesia, and other venues and institutions. In addition, solo exhibitions and focus program of his works have been held at Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto and Centre de la photographie Genève amongst others.