Sandlines

Although his studio is based in Mexico City, over the last 20 years Francis Alÿs has done numerous projects in collaboration with local communities around the world, from South America to North Africa and the Middle East. For Sandlines he established a collaboration with the children of a small village in the Nineveh province in Iraq. The children of this mountain village near Mosul re-enact a century of Iraqi history, from the secret agreement of Sykes/Picot signed in 1916 to the realm of terror established by Islamic State in 2016. To make the children understand their present by revisiting their past, Alÿs invites them to perform a role play, evoking a whole world with the most modest props. It has the simplicity of puppet theatre, and is very close to the artist's project 'Children's Games'. (International Film Festival Rotterdam)