Under the Auspices

During the second event that Fellow Felix Kalmenson is hosting in the context of the Focus Weeks 2025, they are presenting three short films that revolve around the politics of avian and aviatory flight paths in Eurasia. Drawing on the notion of ‘turbulence’ as both a tellurian and atmospheric force, the screening series, Under the Auspices turns to the skies in order to examine flows within international airspace, as a way of divining shifting geopolitical contestations.

The screening will include the following short films:

1. Savaş Boyraz: Partridge Nation, 2022, 24 mins.

Partridge Nation is a visual deconstruction of a contemporary political mythology in the Kurdish mountains. It follows the practice of partridge hunting and its political connotations in a colonial context, creating a set of new imaginings proposing an alternative visual vocabulary of a cultural-self-defence.

2. Elisa Caldana: The Falcon of Karachi, 2025, 18min.

The Falcon of Karachi investigates stories of the laggar falcon, a species endemic to Pakistan, India, and Myanmar that is slowly disappearing in the wild. Caldana elaborates counternarratives and counter-images that attempt to shift the perception of this bird of prey, considered a minor falcon, and draw attention to its right to life, regardless of its reputation or usefulness in the eyes of human beings.

3. Bryony Dunne: Killing the Messengers, 2022, 10 min.

Killing the Messengers combines ancient mythology and modern ornithology to focus on birds as omens, as trackers of climate degradation, pollution and habitat loss. Set on the Greek island of Antikythera where thousands of migratory birds rest and refuel before continuing their journeys across the Mediterranean Sea, Killing the Messengers focuses in part on a team of scientists interested in using birds as ‘exceptional indexes for tracking environmental risk factors’.

Following the screening Savaş Boyraz and Elisa Caldana will be in conversation via Zoom with Felix Kalmenson.

Text: Felix Kalmenson

Access Info:

Onsite: Unfortunately, the space in Innsbruck is not wheelchair accessible. You can attend the event in person at Künstler*innenhaus Büchsenhausen. The call will be enabled with automatic closed captions in English. The bathrooms are used as gender neutral. Chairs with backs, arms and floor seating is all available. We have plenty of space to store mobility devices of all kinds. There is a low sensory space available.

Savaş Boyraz (born in 1980) lives in Stockholm. He contributed to various movie productions of the Mezopotamya Cinema Collective between 1998 and 2006 in Istanbul. He graduated from the Photography Department of Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul in 2009. In 2012, he finished the Public Realm master program at Konstfack, Stockholm, receiving his degree in Fine Arts. In 2010, he has been selected by Lausanne Photography Museum for the reGeneration2 exhibitions and booklet. He also took part in the 53. Venice Biennale by contributing to the “Planet-Kurdistan”-project. With his work “Invisible Landscapes” he was granted with the Victor Masters Fellowship by Hasselblad Foundation, and took part in the New Nordic Photography exhibition in 2013. Alongside his artistic works, since 2016, he collaborated with social researchers from Bergen University, Norway, to produce research related educational films. He’s currently a PhD candidate in Film and Media at Stockholm University of the Arts. https://www.savasboyraz.com/

Elisa Caldana (b. 1986, Italy) is an Italian artist currently based in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Städelschule, Frankfurt, and the IUAV University of Venice. Her work has been shown internationally, including at MACTE Museum, Termoli (2025); West, The Hague (2024); MAXXI Museum, Rome (2023); Italian Cultural Institute, Mexico City (2022); MAMbo Museum, Bologna (2021); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); ROZENSTRAAT, Amsterdam (2020); Tokyo Arts and Space, Tokyo (2019); ar/ge Kunst Kunstverein, Bozen (2017); and Sandretto Foundation, Turin (2019, 2016). Caldana is an alumna of the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (2020–2021) and a recipient of the Mondriaan Fund (2022–2026), the Italian Council (2023, 2019), and Hessische Kulturstiftung (2016–2017). She was an artist in residence at Vasl, Karachi (2023); ROSE Residency, Bologna (2021); and TOKAS, Tokyo (2018). Her most recent publications include The Falcon of Karachi (Mousse Publishing, 2024), Times of Crisis (MAMbo Editions, 2021), and Never Again (Mousse Publishing, 2020). https://www.elisacaldana.info/

Bryony Dunne is an Irish visual artist and filmmaker who engages with the overlap between documentary film, cinema, sculpture, and the natural world. She develops research-driven projects to explore the power dynamics between humanity and nature, focusing on human fantasies about control. Oftentimes her approach is to analyse the connection between fact-based fictions and hypothetical futures. Her works have been exhibited at the Mosaic Rooms (London), Gypsum and Townhouse galleries (Cairo), the Irish Film Institute (Dublin), DEPO (Istanbul), EVA Biennial (Limerick), Tulca – Festival of Visual Arts (Galway) among other venues, and she has participated in a number of international film and video festivals, including the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (Greece), Cork International Film Festival (Ireland), and Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin. In 2021/22 she was resident at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht and in 2023 resident at the European Ceramics Work Centre (EKWC) in Oisterwijk. She is currently artist in residence at the Irish Architectural Archive in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary, her research will result in her first Dublin solo exhibition in early 2026. http://bryonydunne.com/