Javril: Reverse Wild Bunch

Reverse Wild Bunch emerges from the desire to visually depict a miracle: someone passing not from life to death, but rather from death back into life. A reverse death. Cinema, as a locus of fantasy, is an appropriate medium to explore this impossible scenario. Reversing the famous shootout scene from Sam Peckinpah’s 1969 Western classic, Reverse Wild Bunch depicts dozens of soldiers on the Mexico–USA border, being riddled with bullets in a dramatic conflict. Through this simple cinematic strategy, the miraculous occurs: bullets fly back into the barrels of guns, fatal wounds are magically healed and soldiers come back to life.

Javril is a Sydney-born, Paris-based artist who uses photo and video to probe the world around her. She completed her PhD at Sydney College of the Arts in 2013. Javril has exhibited her work in Australia, Europe and the USA, and was invited by the Research Institute of Art and Technology to undertake a residency and solo show at the MuseumsQuartier in Vienna in 2017.