Thursday 2 April, 21:00-23:00, ICA
Cauleen Smith: short film programme and conversation
Films: Sojourner, Cauleen Smith, USA, 2018, DCP, 22 minutes
Three Songs About Liberation, Cauleen Smith, USA, 2017, DCP, 10 minutes
Pilgrim, Cauleen Smith, USA, 2016, DCP, 11 minutes
Crow Requiem, Cauleen Smith, USA, 2015, DCP, 11 minutes
H-E-L-L-O, Cauleen Smith, USA, 2014, DCP, 11 minutes
Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band, Cauleen Smith, USA, 2011, DCP, 10 minutes
Following the screening, Cauleen Smith will be in conversation with Matthew Barrington, Essay Film Festival.
With the support of Arts Council England.
In this session, we present a programme of recent shorts by the artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith. An interdisciplinary artist, Smith’s work has a strong connection to afro-futurist traditions in jazz music, Third Cinema and structuralist film, and since her debut feature film, Drylongso (recently restored by the Academy Film Archive), Smith has worked primarily within the spaces of the gallery and experimental film. This programme highlights Smith’s interpretations and re-imaginings of the music of Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, her interests in science fiction interwoven with African-American history, and the ways in which the historical and contemporary can be brought into dialogue through artistic practice. Pilgrim, H-E-L-L-O and Solar Flare Arkestral Marching Band all bring together musical performance with significant local sites. Three Songs About Liberation and Crow Requiem both continue Smith’s interest in local history through metaphor and staged performances. The programme concludes with Smith’s most recent film, Sojourner, which sees Smith repurpose the Noah Purifoy Outdoor Desert Art Museum in Joshua Tree, California as a radical feminist utopia, incorporating a homage to the feminist abolitionist and human rights activist Sojourner Truth.
