Rochester’s rich, diverse history of noncommercial video art
and activism will get an overdue spotlight in a September 19 event hosted by
the Rochester Documentary Filmmakers Group at Visual Studies Workshop. The two
organizations have partnered for “Projecting Our Voices: Video Activism &
Documentary Filmmaking in Rochester,” an evening of screenings and discussions
honoring Rochester’s radical documentary film advocacy, past and present.
Organizers
say the idea for the event began when RocDocs
expressed an interest in VSW’s Community Curator Program, which allows groups
to collaborate with VSW in creating an event around materials from its
extensive regional archive of film and video art. But it quickly evolved into
something larger. Leaders of both groups say they hope the event will help
introduce their unique missions to a wider audience, in addition to
highlighting the treasure trove of resources offered by VSW.
Meeting on
the third Thursday of each month at the Little Theatre, RocDocs
offers the opportunity for local filmmakers to screen their works-in-progress. These
screenings give artists a chance to put their work in front of a trusted group
of supportive people, who can offer feedback before it gets into the larger
world. And many of those works seek to call attention to a cause or inspire
activism in some way.
Working with
Tara Nelson, VSW’s curator of Moving Image Collections, members of RocDocs pored through VSW’s collection of more than 9,000
film and video titles. And they say they were thrilled to discover how close
the connection was between the past pioneers of video activism and the work
currently being done by its members. “It’s been very exciting, and I think it
clarified the bridge between these two pieces of history,” says RocDocs Advisory Board member Laura Chekow.
The
September 19 program will feature excerpts of early video works from
Rochester’s Portable Channel Collective. An organization that began in the
early 70’s and continued through the mid-80’s, Portable Channel was composed of
local artists and activists working for social justice. “These were video
activists using video tools to go out into communities that weren’t represented
in the media and helping them create their own media to represent themselves,”
Nelson says.
The group
provided community access to equipment, provided training, and produced
programs that sought to empower community activism and inspire social dialog
and artistic expression through documentary filmmaking. “They were supporting
some perspective or viewpoint or voice that isn’t in the mainstream, even
today,” says Chekow.
The
centerpiece of the “Projecting Our Voices” event will be an archival program
curated by RocDoc Members Clara Riedlinger,
ElisabettaSaninoD’amanda, Julie Gelfand, Laura Chekow, and Lorraine Woerner. The
program will feature short works and excerpts from longer films made by
Portable Channel’s Bonnie Klein and documentarian Nancy Rosin. Continuing VSW’s
efforts to make its archives as open and accessible to the public as possible,
the full films being excerpted will be accessible online through the VSW
website.
The
screening will be followed by a panel discussion with local filmmakers
including Nancy Rosin, Clara Riedlinger, Fred
Armstrong, and Nicholle La Vann, and will be
moderated by Carol White Llewellyn. The participating artists will speak about
how their use of modern filmmaking tools helps carry on the traditions of video
activism in Rochester.
Chekow says she hopes that the event will serve as a model
for other local groups. “I’m always marveling how for such a small place, so
much is happening in Rochester. But we tend to get into these silos,” she says.
“We’re a contemporary documentary filmmakers group, and here’s this
well-established, internationally respected and admired archival house. But our
two worlds were staying in our own separate spots. And that doesn’t have to be
the way it is. It’s a nice reminder for other organizations to look out there
and say ‘Who else in their community could we be doing things with, and how can
we learn from each other?'”
“We’re
trying to put this media directly into the hands of this community where it
came from,” Nelson says. “And anyone who wants to look at what we’ve got in our
collection and curate a program around it should contact us. That is exactly
what we’re wanting to do more of.”
VSW’s
Community Curator Program includes a $350 microgrant
for participating organizations as well as assistance with program printing and
promotion. “We never, ever show artists’ work without paying artists and
curators directly,” Nelson stresses. Interested groups will be able to attend
an informational meeting at 12:30 p.m. September 26, at the Visual Studies
Workshop. More information on VSW’s collections and various programs is
available at vsw.org. The Rochester Documentary Filmmakers Group can be found
at rocdocfilms.org.
This article appears in Sep 18-24, 2019.
