Hypericin Yellow Movie: A Performance-Lecture by Oliver Husain and Kerstin Schroedinger

Hypericin is a phytochemical produced by the flowering plant St John’s wort. The plant has been used medicinally in different cultures for centuries, primarily as an antidepressant. In this performance-lecture Kerstin Schroedinger and Oliver Husain relate the flower to health, skin, light, and film by discussing their use of St John’s wort to hand-process the 16mm film in their project DNCB (on view at UB Anderson Gallery) and the political scandal that shrouded Germany in 1996, at the height of the AIDS epidemic, when a study of Hypericin as a treatment for HIV received government support while other AIDS research and care were severely underfunded.
Artist and filmmaker Oliver Husain is based in Toronto, Canada. Husain’s projects often begin with a fragment of history, a rumor, a personal encounter or a distant memory. He uses a wide range of cinematic languages and visual pleasures-such as dance, puppetry, costume, special effects-to animate his research and fold viewers into complex narrative set-ups. DNCB (2018-ongoing), his collaboration with Kerstin Schroedinger, was shown in different formats at Heni Onstad Kunstsenter, Oslo (2022); Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin (2021); and Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE (2021). Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Clages, Cologne (2022) and Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2018). Group exhibitions include Taking a Stand, Stamps Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI (2020) and Immaterial Architecture, Art Museum at the University of Toronto (2020). Festival screenings include Berlinale, Berlin International Film Festival; Oberhausen Short Film Festival; Flaherty Seminar, New York; and Experimenta Festival, Bangalore (award 2017).
Kerstin Schroedinger is an artist working in performance, film/video, and sound. Her historiographic practice questions the means of image production, historical linearities, and the ideological certainties of representation. She researches the coinciding histories of industrialization and film. Her works and curatorial practice are often collaborative. Recent works include DNCB in collaboration with Oliver Husain and The Song of the Shirt (video/installation, 2020). Her works have been screened at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Forum Expanded of Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival; Wavelengths, Toronto; mumok, Vienna; and exhibited at 17th Istanbul Biennial; MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, MA; Photo Cairo #6; nGbK Berlin; and the 2nd Kiev Biennial, among other places.
This lecture took place at the University at Buffalo on Monday, March 6, 2023 in conjunction with the exhibition "I don't know you like that: The Bodywork of Hospitality" curated by Sylvie Fortin. It was co-presented by the University at Buffalo Art Galleries and the University at Buffalo Department of media Study's PLASMA Lecture Series.