Screen Acts: Women in Film and Video

  • In front a cityscape, a black person is mid-air, as though he is doing a back-flip or falling from the sky. A large metal fence is to the left, with green grass below the jumper, and in front of him is a cement street and block. Blue skies look ominous,

    Steffani Jemison, Escaped Lunatic, 2010–11 (video still); Video; Running time 7 minutes, 41 seconds. Image courtesy of the artist.​

  • Two images share a split screen. On the left is a view from above of mountains with a few roads running through it with a few homes. On the right is a surveyor looking through a machine on a tripod.

    Elena Damiani, Intersticio, 2012 (video still); Two-channel video; Running time 5 minutes, 25 seconds. Image courtesy of the artist.

    This series highlights women artists and filmmakers whose works draw on the histories of representation and performance in film and video to address some of the most pressing social issues of our time. Topics range from representations of African Americans in vernacular culture to the politics of space and collective memory.

    Artists in this program include Elena Damiani, Steffani Jemison, Jazmín López, Carrie Mae Weems, and the Ethnocine Collective (Emily Hong, Miasarah Lai, and Mariangela Mihai).

     

    Press

    Female Artists Resist Easy Interpretation in SJMA’s ‘Screen Acts,’ KQED Arts
    April 30, 2019