Exploring ideas of productivity, escapism and community, Surrender (2023) brings us into Jenkin’s hallucinatory film-world, centred around a gruelling endurance dance marathon and the cryptid lore of the ‘rat king’. Spilling across the ground floor galleries, Jenkin transforms these spaces into immersive environments, from a dancefloor inside the belly of a rat, to an energy drink-lined trophy room.

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Inside the ballroom, an endlessly looping film follows the experience of GRACE, a visitor to the Paradise Engineering Endurance Partnership (P.E.E.P.) Hotel. Inspired by the transient nature of Japanese love hotels - short-stay fantastical spaces that can be booked by the hour for “rest” - GRACE checks in and begins to compete, along with other paired couples, in a series of increasingly strange tournaments that play with the limitations and expansiveness of the body. Fuelled by an endless stream of ‘Limitless’ branded energy drinks, it’s unclear whether GRACE’s drive to participate emerges from an insatiable yearning, or from a desire for community, oblivion, or victory in the marathon.

Through these works, Jenkin questions ideas of individuality and collectivity: community-building fosters belonging, allyship and resistance, but often neoliberal frameworks pit us against each other for basic survival. Surrender evokes a sense of menace and anxiety that reflects the needs and fears of our current moment - our need for productivity and success competes with our desire for community, at the cost of exhaustion and, ultimately, surrender.
 

 

One-half-of-GRACE played by Alex Margo Arden

One-half-of-GRACE played by Ted Rodgers

One-half-of-FAITH played by Emma Belabed

One-half-of-FAITH played by Max Cookward

One-half-of-JENNIFER played by Ayo Babatope 

One-half-of-JENNIFER played by Finn Love 

One-half-of-SAMANTHA played by Wet Mess 

One-half-of-SAMANTHA played by Webster Opiyo 

Maids, P.A.I.N. Nurses, Referees, Bellhops and Chauffeurs played by Theodore Pantelopoulos and Eugenia Shishkina. 

 

Production crew - Baran Caliskan, Sam Keelan, Liv Preston, Agnieszka Szczotka, Jordan Tannahill, Betsie van Zyl, Piet van Zyl, Magda Viljoen, Magnus Westwell and David Wilson. 

Direction, primary camera, edit, sound design, set and costume design by Jenkin Van Zyl 

Red dancewear by Sardanapalus 

Second camera operation by Kevin Brennan

 

Based on writing by Brittany Newell and Jenkin van Zyl.