“Kassaram (Adapted)” will play on a billboard at 9157 Sunset Blvd. from Feb. 1 to May 31. (photo courtesy of the city of West Hollywood)

The city of West Hollywood will debut the next exhibitions in the Moving Image Media Art program. MIMA is an ongoing exhibition series of moving image media artworks on multiple digital billboards at various locations along Sunset Boulevard. The goals of the MIMA Program are to foster cultural equity, expand accessibility, inspire communication, create public space and enhance the human experience of the Sunset Strip.

“Kassaram (Adapted),” a short film from artist Thania Petersen, will debut at the Streamlined Arbor billboard, located at 9157 Sunset Blvd., and will air at the top of every hour for 10-and-a-half minutes. “Reverse Women,” a short film from artist Sarah Rara, will debut at the Invisible Frame billboard, located at 8743 Sunset Blvd., and will air at the top of every hour and 30 minutes past each hour. Both works will be on exhibition from Wednesday, Feb. 1 through Wednesday, May 31.

“Kassaram (Adapted)” is inspired by the historically significant building that sits at the base of the Streamlined Arbor and is an authentic reexamination of cultural identity, by amplifying the voices of those silenced and marginalized. Thania Petersen’s vivid and layered work, “Kassaram (Adapted)” examines how embedded clichés devalue culture and provide the framework for the permission of subjugation. Across a timeline of slurs and stereotypes, nuanced imagery devolves into more familiar scenes of chaos. Petersen subverts the narrative by illustrating how structural racism serves to further isolate, diminish and dehumanize.

Thania Petersen is a South African multidisciplinary artist who addresses the intricacies and complexities of identity.

“Reverse Women” features images of running women advance backwards in slow motion, as if the ground is being pulled out from under them, evoking unsettling allegories of agency, power and progress. In “Reverse Women,” the gesture of running is pivotal and intentionally ambiguous, seen both as a sign of practiced liberation, wellness, resilience; yet infused with suspense by the discomfort of watching someone struggle to escape. “Reverse Women” ultimately illustrates the disorientation of our unreliable and faltering constitutional protections.

Sarah Rara’s multi-disciplinary practice explores the position of witness within fragile systems.

MIMA enables artists to occupy, contest and play with the boundaries and uses of public space and manifest moments of connection and awe. Artists exhibited in the program are selected from the MIMA Prequalified List, a rolling, open-call for moving image media artists, curators and non-profit arts organizations, with applications reviewed bi-annually by the city of West Hollywood’s Arts and Cultural Affairs Commission, in May and November. The MIMA Prequalified List includes a diverse list of artists of all career levels; from emerging to internationally recognized: weho.org/community /arts-and-culture/visual-arts/mima.