From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf
Feature-length film by sea between western India, eastern Africa and the Persian gulf. First shown at a purpose built outdoor cinema on the creekside in Sharjah in 2013, where many of the sailors gather. Shown in Documenta 13 in an abridged form, as part of the installation The Boat Modes.
83 mins.
Original format(s): HDV, SDV, VHS-C, Cellphone videos (variable formats). Stereo audio and in-cameraphone music.
A boat has many powers: to gather a society in its making, to distribute goods, to carry people and ideas across places that, it seems to us, are more different than ever before.
The widely travelled feature-length film From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf; a vast, undulating, and musical spatio-temporal journey through the Western Indian Ocean, is a result of four years of dialogue, friendship and exchange between CAMP and a group of sailors from the Gulf of Kutch. Their travels, and those of co-seafarers from Pakistan and Southern Iran, through the Persian and Aden Gulfs show us a world cut into many pieces, not easily bridged by nostalgics or nationalists. Instead, we follow the physical crossings made by these groups of people who make and sail boats. And who also make videos, sometimes with songs married to them.
From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf was awarded the Jury mention at Festival International de Cinema, Marseille and the New Views Prize, Olhar de CInema, Curutiba. It was the opening film at Images Festival Toronto, and has been screened at BFI London Film Festival, the Viennale, MoMA, Flaherty Seminar, Shanghai Biennale among other venues. It showed in Bombay and Sharjah in purpose-built cinemas; one inside a public museum and one on the waterfront and was on display at the Tate Modern 2019 - 2021.
This film is part of a broader multi-year Indian Ocean project, see Wharfage.
Filmography
2026
Field Recordings 6, Rotterdam.
2025
Doc's Kingdom, Odemira
Video After Video: The Critical Media of CAMP, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NYC
2024
Public Trust, Philadelphia
From the Land to the Sea, Art Jameel, Dubai
Heavy Metal Containers, Spectacle Cinema, Brooklyn
What the Cameras Saw and Remembered, Two films by CAMP, Capitol Cinema, Melbourne
2023
Afterimage: M+ Collections
2022
In The Heart Of Another Country: The Diasporic Imagination In The Sharjah Art Foundation Collection
Scoring The Words, SEOUL MUSEUM OF ART (SEMA)
MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai
Collections display: Media Networks, Tate Modern
Passages Through Passages, Sharjah Art Foundation, solo
2021
Collections display: Media Networks, Tate Modern
Museum of Contemporary Art & Design, Manila
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul
Watch and Chill, M+ Hongkong
South Asia Foreground - Labocine
2020
Collections display: Media Networks, Tate Modern
Punto De Vista International Documentary Festival of Navarra, Pamplona
2019
Body Building, Ishara Art Foundation, Dubai
40 Films: An inventory of Contemporary Cinema, Festival des Trois Continents, Nantes
2018
An Oceanic Feeling, Len Lye Center Cinema, New Plymouth
Lahore Biennale 01, Alhamra Art Center, Lahore
The Ocean After Nature, The Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, New York
Face Value, Transmediale, HKW Berlin
2017
Sekula beyond Sekula – Okeanos, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, TBA21, Vienna
Keimena, Documenta 14
Water in Indian Cinema, King’s College, London
The Ocean After Nature, Samstag Museum of Art, Adelaide
Grossman Gallery, Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, London
Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane
2016
Transactions, Manifesta Parallel Exhibition, University of Zurich
The Ocean After Nature, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Mosaic Rooms, London
2015
After Midnight: Indian Modernism to Contemporary India 1947/1997, Queens Museum, New York
As If – III Country of the Sea, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum (solo)
Mobile M+ Moving images, M+ Hongkong
2014
Shanghai Biennale
Rupert, Vilnius
Porto Post Doc
Musée de la Chasse et de la
Flaherty Seminar, New York
Olhar de Cinema, Curutiba
Opening Films, Images Festival Toronto
Ann Arbor Film Festival
Tales from the Networked Neighbourhood: The Cinema of CAMP, Palestrina Cinema, Milan
FICUNAM Mexico
Mirage Cinema, March Meeting, Sharjah
Dhaka Art Summit
2013
Migrating Forms Film Festival, New York
Cork Film Festival, Ireland
Viennale, Vienna International Film Festival Doc Lisboa, Lisbon
Athens Avant-Garde Film Festival
Underdox, Munich
BFI London Film Festival
Festival Internationale de Cinema (FID), Marseille
Le Pont, Museum of Contemporary Art, Marseille
Sharjah Biennale XI, Sharjah
2012
Documenta (13) as 'The Boat-Modes'
Credits:
Direction: Shaina Anand, Ashok Sukumaran.
CAMP,
Siddik Umar Sanghar
and Junas Salemamad Bhagad
present:
Kutchi Vahan Pani Wala (From Gulf to Gulf to Gulf)
Camera: Siddik Umar Sanghar, Mrinal Desai, Junas Salemamad Bhagad, Ashok Sukumaran, Shaina Anand, Sulaiman Haroon Raja urf Dada, Jabbar Hassan Chingda, Ismail Haroon Ghandhar, Mohammed Rafik, Sulaiman Wahab Sumbhania, Abdul Majid Chauhan, Mehboob Abbas Sanghar, Hakimuddin Lilyawala, Anonymous.
Editor: Sreya Chatterjee.
More at: Indiancine.ma
Recent venues:
Tate Modern, London (on show through 2021)
Opening film, Documenta14 Kiemena program (on Greek Television) 2017
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