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Naeem Mohaiemen and Vincent Meessen in Conversation

Director’s Dialogue on Art and Social Change

Moderated by Pranav Jani

Three large screens project images in a dark room.

Join artists Vincent Meessen and Naeem Mohaiemen for an engaging conversation about politics, memory, and justice on film.

During the program, Meessen and Mohaiemen will delve into the ideas and questions driving their innovative filmmaking. Mohaiemen’s new three-channel film Through a Mirror, Darkly—on view at the Wex this spring as part of his exhibition Corinthians—revisits the charged political landscape of 1970s America. A Missing Can of Film, which he completed in 2025 and is screening here on March 24, explores disputed history in Bangladesh. Meessen’s Just a Movement (2021), is a dynamic reinterpretation of Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise (1967), which screens at the Wex on March 5 and 11. Meessen’s documentary, which tells the story of anti-colonialist artist and organizer Omar Blondin Diop, will screen at the Wex on March 25. 

Together, Meessen’s and Mohaiemen's films probe urgent themes, setting the stage for a timely and thought-provoking conversation on how artists bring critical social issues into focus through contemporary cinema. 

This year’s Director's Dialogue is moderated by Ohio State Associate Professor of English Pranav Jani. 

IMAGE CAPTION
Naeem Mohaiemen, Through a Mirror, Darkly, 2025, at Albany House, London. © Naeem Mohaiemen. Courtesy of Artangel. Photograph: Thierry Bal for Artangel. 

More about the Director's Dialogue

Since 2006, the center’s Director's Dialogues have explored social justice, identity politics, climate change, and health care, among other issues, with such leading cultural and academic figures as Hanif Abdurraqib, Camae Ayewa (Moor Mother), Chinonye Chukwu, Anaïs Duplan, Hope Ginsburg, Ann Hamilton, Wil Haygood, Cameron Granger, Kerry James Marshall, Paul D. Miller (aka DJ Spooky), Jason Moran, Cadine Navarro, Anna Deavere Smith, Lynne Tillman, and Patricia Williams.

About the artists

Vincent Meessen

Vincent Meessen (b. 1971, Baltimore) is an artist who lives and works in Brussels, Belgium. His artistic work explores the lasting effects of colonialism on modern life, often through non-Western and marginalized perspectives. He has presented films and artworks in festivals and artistic institutions around the world, including solo shows at The Power Plant, Toronto, and Centre Pompidou, Paris. He has participated in the Chicago Architecture Biennial, as well as the Lubumbashi, Venice, Shanghai, and Taipei biennials, among other exhibitions. Meessen was the recipient of an Ammodo Tiger Award at IFFR in 2018 for his work Ultramarine. He is a member of Jubilee, a platform for artistic research and production.

Naeem Mohaiemen

Artist Naeem Mohaiemen grew up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and currently lives and works in New York. His works intertwine film, photography, and essays to explore forms of utopia-dystopia within families, borders, architecture, and uprisings. Conversations around “nonalignment” as a concept container in contemporary art pivoted after the premiere of his film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017), which was a finalist for Britain’s Turner Prize (2018). Art Review magazine’s annual “Power 100” list of influential people in contemporary art included Mohaiemen in 2023. 
 

Program Support

The Wexner Center’s Director’s Dialogues are made possible by the generous support from the Shumate Family Endowment Fund and a lead endowment gift from an anonymous donor.

LEARNING AND PUBLIC PROGRAMS EVENTS MADE POSSIBLE BY

American Electric Power Foundation
CoverMyMeds
Huntington

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

Ohio Arts Council
Milton and Sally Avery Arts Foundation
Martha Holden Jennings Foundation
Ingram-White Castle Foundation

WEXNER CENTER PROGRAMS MADE POSSIBLE BY

Greater Columbus Arts Council
The Wexner Family
Ohio Arts Council, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts
CampusParc
The Columbus Foundation
Every Page Foundation
Mellon Foundation
Axium Packaging
Nationwide Foundation
Michael and Anita Goldberg
Vorys Sater Seymour and Pease LLP

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

Joyce Shenk
Rebecca Perry and Ben Towle
Lachelle Thigpen

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Naeem Mohaiemen and Vincent Meessen in Conversation