Doors Open at 7pm.

Curated by BAC Film Program Coordinator Nick Shimkin. 

Filmmakers will be in attendance for discussion and Q&A following the screening.

PROGRAM

"Broad Channel"
(Sarah J. Christman, 2010, 14min)

Over the course of four seasons, the nuances of everyday activity are examined along one narrow stretch of public shoreline in New York City's Jamaica Bay. Moments of recurrence and change cycle through an ecosystem rooted in migration.

“Treatment Plan”
(Martin Lucas, 2011, 9min)

Shot in the Verrazano Narrows over a five month period, “Treatment Plan” is a meditation on beauty and despondency. While either the image or the sound track could be imagined as documentary on its own, together they offer a meditation on the nature and potential of film storytelling.  

“Gouwane”
(Susannah Sayler/Edward Morris, 2013, 14min)

“Gouwane” is a speculative ethology and ethnography of the Gowanus Canal. Our narrator takes us on a tour of the post-industrial canal via canoe, showcasing the accretions of cultural detritus, a motley crew of urban wildlife, both human and non-human, as well as the plans for redevelopment, which have transformed this forgotten space.

“An Accelerating Decline”
(Jeanne Wilkinson, 2011, 5min)

Made before Hurricane Sandy, and pointing to a grave and uncertain future, “An Accelerating Decline” takes the viewer on an eerie journey through city and country, floating through a landscape fraught with apocalyptic messages. The title was taken from a graph depicting the fall of the housing market, but it becomes a metaphor for the deteriorating state of our environment.  

“Brad’s Book”
(Bradly Dever Treadaway, 2012, 5min)

“Brad's Book” is part of a series of videos investigating the dilution of a fleeting family history. In the piece we witness an attempt to gather the presumably ruined family portraits that float in a swimming pool. A voice-over indicates an intimacy with the subjects while addressing the limits of memory. The piece is developed with a hypnotic pacing and the mesmerizing sound of a seemingly non-present storm. Familial schisms seem to riddle the work as each figure is addressed alone, and the futility of an attempt to close generational gaps brings to head the role of personal perception in family lineage.

“What the Sea Left Behind”
(Kevin T. Allen, 2010, 4min)

A journey above and below one of America’s most polluted waterways. An audio-visual portrait of the Gowanus Canal using binaural contact microphones, a homemade hydrophone, and the filmmaker’s last roll of Super-8mm Kodachrome. The film asks us to open our eyes and ears to meet a hidden world submerged within this forgotten and neglected estuary.

“Far Rockaway”
(Brian Zegeer, 2013, 5min)

A music video filmed at Dead Horse Bay, an early 20th Century landfill that has since erupted onto the beach surface, leaving the refuse of another age scattered amid the weeds. This twisted landscape looks out on Rockaway Beach, one of Hurricane Sandy's most heavily-affected areas. Though Baby Copperhead's song predates the storm's rampage, the animated and video sequences produced at Dead Horse Bay are intended to evoke an eerily aware nature, causing wreckage and repair on a whim, eluding clear motive or our conventional homo-centric reading of all events in the universe, large or small.

“English Kills Voyage”
(Laura Chipley, Nathan Kensinger, Sarah Nelson Wright, 2013, 8min)

The Newtown Creek is one of the most polluted bodies of water in the United States. "English Kills Voyage" journeys into the waters of this toxic Superfund Site, exploring the English Kills, a contaminated tributary located at the very end the canal in Bushwick, Brooklyn. This film was created by The Newtown Creek Armada, a public art project exploring the past, present and future of the creek. 

“Coney Island Sinking”
(Harriet Feigenbaum, 2012, 6min)

A two part dream sequence/nightmare about rising sea levels in the neighborhood the filmmaker lived as a child. The movie, combining animation and live action, was completed in August 2012, two months before Hurricane Sandy flooded the Coney Island peninsula.

FILMMAKER BIOS

Broad Channel (Sarah J. Christman, 2010, 14min)

Sarah J. Christman makes non-fiction films that explore the intersections between people, technology and the natural world. She received the New Visions Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival for her film "Dear Bill Gates", and Jury Awards from the Ann Arbor Film Festival for "Broad Channel" and "As Above, So Below." Christman’s work has screened widely, including MoMA Documentary Fortnight, Rotterdam International Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival, New York Film Festival, and Los Angeles Filmforum. She is an Assistant Professor in the Film Department at Brooklyn College.

www.sarahchristman.com

Treatment Plan (Martin Lucas, 2011, 9min)

Martin Lucas is a video artist and media activist living in Brooklyn, whose work explores the links of the technological with languages of control and forms of resistance. His short film exploration of traffic flow and collective paranoia, Earlier Incident was featured at the 2009 Niet Normaal Exhibition in Amsterdam. His recent Cold Shutdown: Fukushima One Year After is a look at how Japanese citizens are coping with life in a region covered with fallout.  His work has been seen at locales including the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, New York, The New York Film Festival, the Buena Vista Arts Center, San Francisco, and the Ars Electronica, Linz. Martin teaches video and new media production in the Film and Media Studies Department at Hunter College, City University of New York. He has a BFA in film from New York University, and an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Art.

www.martinlucas.net

“Gouwane” (Susannah Sayler/Edward Morris, 2013, 14min)

Susannah Sayler and Edward Morris work with photography, video, writing and installation. Of primary concern are contemporary efforts to develop ecological consciousness and the possibilities for art within a social activist practice. In 2006 they co-founded The Canary Project - a collaborative that produces visual media and artworks that deepen public understanding of climate change (www.canary-project.org + www.history-of-the-future.com). Works from The Canary Project have shown in diverse venues, including: art museums such as The Kunsthal Museum in Rotterdam, The Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver and the Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY); science museums such as the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and  the Museum of Science and Industry (Chicago, IL); universities; public art projects; magazines; city halls; etc.  In 2008-2009 Sayler and Morris were Loeb Fellows at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. They are currently teaching in the Transmedia Department at Syracuse University.

“An Accelerating Decline” (Jeanne Wilkinson, 2011, 5min)

Jeanne Wilkinson is an artist, curator and writer working in Brooklyn, NY. Formerly an abstract painter, her artwork now involves digital collages and animations that merge fantasy and reality, often encompassing a kind of childlike wonder and delight with the world along with apocalyptic visions of our future.  Her work has been shown at BAM and in numerous venues, including recent screenings in Ottawa, at Creon Gallery and Gallery 128 in NYC, and Trestle Gallery in Brooklyn. She has written art criticism for numerous publications and her essays have been featured on NPR broadcasts such as Living on Earth and The Leonard Lopate Show. She writes a blog about art, travel and politics, and teaches at Kingsborough Community College.

“Brad’s Book” (Bradly Dever Treadaway, 2012, 5min)

Bradly Dever Treadaway is a Brooklyn-based artist and teacher utilizing photography, video, film and installation to emphasize socially conscious themes and self-awareness.His work revolves around the loss of family, tradition and history and aspires to reunite present and past through visual metaphors. Treadaway works with five generations of family archives from Southern Louisiana, deconstructing and recontextualizing images to comment on the struggle to preserve intergenerational relationships and connections to heritage. Treadaway is an internationally exhibited and published artist, a Fulbright Scholar to Italy and a Faculty member at The International Center of Photography in New York City.

“What the Sea Left Behind” (Kevin T. Allen, 2010, 4min)

Kevin T. Allen is a filmmaker, sound artist and radio producer whose practice ranges from the ethnographic to the experimental. He has exhibited at numerous venues, including MoMA, Ethnographic Terminalia, Flaherty NYC, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Berlin Directors Lounge and Ann Arbor Film Festival. His sound work has been featured at museums and festivals, including the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Third Coast International Audio Festival and Deep Wireless Festival of Radio Art. He has made ethnographically imbued films in Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, the Wild West, and the migrant farm worker community of Immokalee, Florida. Recent research has lead him to find culture not exclusively in human forms, but also inherent in physical landscapes and material objects. His work is funded through the Jerome Foundation. He teaches documentary practice and experimental filmmaking at The New School.

www.phonoscopy.com

“Far Rockaway” (Brian Zegeer, 2013, 5min)

Brian Zegeer makes stop-motion animations, making physical changes to an environment in order to unearth the network of stories arising from the site’s particular history or the politics associated with its use. Zegeer received his MFA from the University of Pennsylvania, and attended Skowhegan School of Sculpture and Painting in 2010. He has recently exhibited at the Queens Museum of Art, The Delaware Art Museum. Louis V. ESP, Regina Rex, Thompkins Projects, Elga Wimmer Gallery, and Stephan Stoyanov Gallery.

“English Kills Voyage” (Laura Chipley, Nathan Kensinger, Sarah Nelson Wright, 2013, 8min)

The Newtown Creek Armada is a collaboration between Brooklyn-based artists Laura Chipley, Nathan Kensinger and Sarah Nelson Wright, and was funded in part by grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council and the Hudson River Foundation. 

www.newtowncreekarmada.org

Laura Chipley uses video, sculpture and public interventions to scratch away at the surface of the ordinary and investigate the fantastical, spiritual and subversive qualities of everyday objects, places and human interactions. She is the creator of Deep Black Sea, an experimental documentary series that chronicles the aftermath of oil spills around the world. Her installations, sculptures and videos have been exhibited in festivals and galleries across the country. Laura is currently a visiting professor of Media and Communications at SUNY Old Westbury College.

www.laurachipley.com

Nathan Kensinger is a photographer and filmmaker whose work explores hidden urban landscapes, off-limits structures and other liminal spaces. His photograhs have been exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, and his films have screened at Slamdance, Black Maria, Rooftop Films, SF IndieFest, and the Boston Underground. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Wired Magazine, The New Yorker and New York Magazine. He is currently the Director of Programming for the Brooklyn Film Festival. 

www.nathankensinger.com

Sarah Nelson Wright creates interdisciplinary media projects and public art about the urban experience that explore the changing city and investigate avenues for intervention. Her work encompasses video, installation, interactive sculpture, and poetic design.  She has exhibited in diverse New York venues, including CONFLUX, The Center, PowerHouse ArtSpace and Bring To Light, as well as in Mostra de Artes in San Paulo, Brazil, and ACVic in Vic, Spain.  She teaches digital media and media studies at Marymount Manhattan College. 

www.sarahnelsonwright.com

Coney Island Sinking (Harriet Feigenbaum, 2012, 6min)

Harriet Feigenbaum’s work has shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY;  Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, NY; Institute of Contemporary Art University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Hayden Gallery, M.I.T., Cambridge, MA; Archicenter of the Chicago School of Architecture foundation, Chicago, IL; and Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA. Her awards include: National Endowment for the Arts Artist's Fellowship; National Endowment for the Arts Art in public Places; Creative Artists Public Service Grant, NY State Council on the Arts; National Heritage Trust, Artist-in-Residence Grant, Artpark, Lewiston, NY; Scranton Area Foundation, Scranton, PA; Art Commission of the City of New York, Award for Excellence in Design; Coney Island Film Festival Award, Best Experimental Film.