Nostalgia, a three-part film installation by artist Omer Fast, opened at the South London Gallery on Oct. 7. Graded at Rushes by Colorist Denny Cooper, the film recently won Fast the 2009 Nationalgalerie Prize for Young Art, thought of as the German equivalent of the Turner Prize. Rushes completed work on one strand of this three-part art installation piece, which is a compelling exploration of transcontinental migration.

	From Nostalgia

This story was inspired by a conversation between the artist and a west African national seeking asylum in London. While not a straightforward adaptation of his experiences, the work picks up on one strand from his life story and embeds it in several scenes that repeat in each film.

One part depicts a migrant from a dystopian Britain seeking asylum in Africa. This narrative is presented alongside an extract of original footage and a dramatization of an encounter between the artist and an asylum seeker in Britain. Deliberately combining these disparate elements, Fast presents a contemporary recollection of displacement and loss in a film narrative that is set in the future but which appears to have been produced in the past.

Cooper comments: "Omer and Director of Photography Nina Kellgren were seeking a very specific look. The theme of displacement was conveyed through the visual anachronism of sepia tones applied to modern settings. Though Omer usually shoots pristine data, he opted in this case for the inherently grainy texture of 16mm film to enhance this aesthetic. The grade was all about unobtrusively exploring the artistic dimension of this approach while ensuring image integrity through a compressed HD workflow and projection."

Fast's installation will be on display at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin from Sept. 11 to Jan. 3, the South London Gallery from Oct. 7 to Dec. 6, and the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive from Oct. 25 to Jan. 10.

	From Nostalgia

About the Artist
Omer Fast is increasingly gaining international attention, having won the Berlin Nationalgalerie's 2009 Prize for Young Art and the Bucksbaum Award at last year's Whitney Biennial. He also secured an important commission as part of New York's Performa festival for 2009. He was born in 1972 in Jerusalem and currently lives and works in Berlin. Recent group exhibitions include On the Subject of War at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, 2008; Liverpool Biennial, Tate Liverpool, 2008; Manifesta 7, Trento, 2008; Whitney Biennial, New York, 2008; Les Inquiets, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2008. Forthcoming solo exhibitions include Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and UC Berkeley Museum of Art, California.

Nostalgia is co-produced by the South London Gallery; the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; and the Verein der Freunde der Nationalgalerie, Berlin. With special thanks to the Migrants Resource Centre and the Refugee Council, London.