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Who is remembered? Who is allowed to call a country their homeland, and whose legacy is protected? These are but a few of the questions the artist, filmmaker, writer, and performer Mayis Rukel (1992) addresses in his work. Prior to studying at the art academy, Rukel studied English literature. His work consists of hybrid stories that blur the lines between documentary and fiction. They are based on a wide range of social themes, including justice, Black queer feminism, speculative fiction, radical pedagogy, and decolonized archival practices.
His feature film Movement Song (2025) links the fictional character Noa to the tragic fate of the writer James Baldwin’s home in the south of France. For this project, Rukel closely collaborated with Baldwin scholar Magdalena Zaborowska and the custodian of Baldwin’s material legacy, Jill Hutchinson. The film shows how the artist and researcher Noa, who is tormented by heartbreak, travels to the village of Saint Paul-de-Vence in the wake of James Baldwin. From 1971 until his death in 1987, Baldwin had found solace there, hoping his home would become a writers’ refuge. However, project developers have since demolished the property. They turned it into a gated community with luxury villas and erased all traces of Baldwin’s exile. In the film, the fictional character Noa encounters the real-life person Jill, who shares actual memories kept in a tangible archive. They interact on a deeply human and tender level, thereby not only allowing truth, fiction, and memory to intermingle, but also to be transcended.
Text: Esther Darley
Translated from Dutch by Marie Louise Schoondergang (The Art of Translation)