Between Land and Sky is an experimental moving image project which involves narration, stop motion animation, performance, ritual music and manipulated video. It explores the idea of estrangement by following a sequence of nonlinear events that connect childhood trauma, and vague memories to longing for a sense of home. The connection comes through the voice of the narrator as a thread tying the multiple visual styles of the story. Between the fascination of the narrator with rhythmic gymnastics and how they can land on the ground after flipping and twisting in the air and remembering a physical trauma that happened in the dark during the time of the narrator’s early childhood, the film moves in a hazy state of mind, contemplating estrangement and exile through following the movement of feet jumping off and on the ground, wailing and the swirling of the papyrus made puppet in space surrounded by clouds.

Shayma Aziz is a New York-based multi-disciplinary artist whose work centralises and rethinks the feminine diasporic body, its representation in mythology, folk belief and its multifaceted existence in the modern world. Born in Asyut, Egypt, Aziz’s artistic approach is informed by her study of ancient Egyptian art, film and international contemporary practices. She obtained her BFA in painting from Luxor University, where she investigated representational formats in ancient Egyptian art before she moved to Cairo and actively engaged in its growing art and independent film scene for well over a decade. She moved to New York after 8 years of the Arab uprisings, where she obtained her MFA in Studio Art at the City College of New York. Aziz works on decolonising materials like oil paints and canvas in her painting work. She experiments with printmaking, stop-motion animation and video performance in expressing the diasporic body and how it lives in liminality in her multi-media and storytelling work. Her work has been exhibited widely in solo, and group shows and festivals in Cairo, Alexandria, New York, Thessaloniki, Beirut, Tunis, Amsterdam and Marseilles. Throughout her career, she received production and residency grants including City Artists Corps Grant, NYC, Al Mawred Al Thaqafi’s Production Grant, Centre d’Arte I Natura’s residency program, L’officina Marseille residency and production grant, Siwa Studios Residency, 3rd place prize at Caravan’s Global Mosaic exhibition and CCNY Provost’s Prize in Art.