Body Memory at Union Docs
So fun to introduce and facilitate this discussion with Faith Holland and Seth Barry Watter of their essay on work by Shana Moulton paired with Jennifer Reeder’s terrific film A Million Miles Away on the occasion of the launch of Millennium Film Journal #70, Body Memory. So many thanks to Union Docs in Brooklyn, one of my favorite venues for independent and experimental cinema, for hosting and co-presenting this evening on December 15th. Having grown up surrounded by “New Age” influences I particularly enjoyed delving into Shana Moulton’s work and remain a big fan. Faith and Seth sparkled with brilliance.
From Union Docs:
Among the common tropes of the New Age healing narrative is that the self must be dismembered before it can be made whole. Visualization and channeling, aromatherapy and crystals are aids to that labor of self-excavation. Moulton’s deft use of the video medium has often gone far to portray such experience—to make graphically manifest the metaphysics of feeling-good. […] The riddle posed by Whispering Pines as a whole is: what’s wrong? Each episode attempts in some way to solve it. Moulton offers one clue in Whispering Pines 7 (2006) when she sings in the form of a cubistic sphinx: “Now that I’m a woman, everything is strange.” —Faith Holland & Seth Watter “From Picture Plane to Astral Plane: Shana Moulton’s Whispering Pines”
We are excited to host a festive evening dedicated to the latest volume of Millennium Film Journal, BODY MEMORY. In celebration, we have invited featured writers from this volume, Faith Holland and Seth Barry Watter, to unpack and walk us through their essay “Picture Plane to Astral Plane” that examines Video Artist Shana Moulton’s video performance series Whispering Pines. We will share a program of Moulton’s videos alongside Jennifer Reeder’s film A Million Miles Away, also featured in this volume of the journal to open up a conversation around contemporary feminist filmmaking perspectives and practice. Millennium Film Journal’s Editor Grahame Weinbren will be in attendance with Rachel Stevens to introduce this volume and the program. Following a presentation from Seth Watter and Faith Holland, Stevens will lead a conversation with them on the films and their work.
https://uniondocs.org/event/2019-12-15-body-memory/