This Night Garden will be co-hosted by APRA, the Amsterdam Psychedelic Research Association. Together we will show and talk about Embrace of the Serpent, an adventuredrama filmdirected byCiro Guerra.
Embrace of the Serpent was premiered on 15 May 2015 during the Directors' Fortnight section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Art Cinema Award. It isn’t a heavy-handed movie with a moral so much as a surreal and transporting parable, told from the perspective of one tribe’s last standard-bearer. The movie was inspired by the travel journals of ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg and biologist Richard Evans Schultes, which shed light on Amazonian cultures that history might have otherwise forgotten. Guerra dedicates the movie to the other indigenous people — the ones we know nothing about. Their customs and cultures might have disappeared, but the director does them justice all the same, with a brilliant, atmospheric reimagining of one man’s rich and remarkable life.
APRA (Amsterdam Psychedelic Research Association)
_introduction/lecture
APRA is an interdisciplinary, academic nonprofit association for researchers and university students based in Amsterdam, focusing on substances and practices that show promise for therapy and research, but that suffer an impaired research development because of their legal status or psychoactive effects. Most notably, this definition includes classical psychedelics (LSD, psilocybin), cannabis and MDMA; but also non-pharmacological means to induce altered states of consciousness (e.g. Ganzfeld experiments).
"The foundation of my curiosity in music lays in the high school years when awe-inspiring hip-hop productions from legends as DJ Premier, Jay Dee, and RZA would get me hooked, each with their own authentic style. I got intrigued by the art of sampling, which opened the door towards years of soul and funk digging to come. Later on, I started exploring more experimental productions made with early analog sound synthesizers; the music that heavily influenced the rise of house music in all its shapes years later. Finding common ground between elements of seemingly unrelated tracks in breakbeat, electro, (proto) house, Italo, funk and ambient sounds can launch a powerful dynamic vibe that I try to harmonize in every set."
Night Garden is an event series in which we invite people to share their unique plant-related journeys. Come join us in this parallel universe accompanied by dreamy DJ sets and botanical dancing to keep your winter hearts warm! Using the series Mediamatic will foster a better understanding and establish communication between people and indoor plants. Learning together through playing, interactive exploration and entertainment.
