arjunraj

arjunraj

Körperkino: Embodied Cinema as the future of Storytelling

arjunraj is a filmmaker, multimodal researcher and artist. Drawing from a decade of experience in telling stories rooted in embodied knowledge of discriminatory suffering in India & Germany, arjunraj is on a journey to deconstruct the semiotics shaping the self. arjunraj has been developing a revolutionary storytelling methodology collaborating with individuals carrying stresses of othering fracturing the politics of storytelling on who gets to tell stories about whom. arjunraj teaches decolonial filmmaking at the Albert Ludwigs Universität Freiburg and Freie Universität Berlin. arjunraj is currently working on Liminality, an artistic feature film looking into weight of intergenerational trauma. arjunraj is a recipient of fellowships from the Robert Bosch Stiftung, Berlin Senate & CIRCE.

Project

Institutions within the CCE which create, archive knowledge and disseminate stories like museums and media houses wield enormous power to choose which stories get told, who is able to tell stories about whom and whose stories are heard. Körperkino aims to intervene in mitigating these challenges to hold plurality in thought. By putting the methodology into practice as a comprehensive and accessible tool kit to ‘Stop, Look, and Reflect’ on the extractive principles embedded in the storytelling practices of various CCE actors, the project proposes clear methods to adopt collaborative approaches. By bringing consciousness to the need for plural thoughts and stories, the project enables its user to dive into personal histories, belief systems, limitations, and worldviews to bridge the gap between ‘self’ and ‘other.’ The project underscores the transformative power of storytelling to reshape perceptions and create communities of resilience.