Conversation, Screening & Presentation

Collective Visions: The Past, Present, and Future of Feminist Media

Mon, Nov 16, 2020

1:00 PM–8:30 PM

Monday, November 16th, 1:00-4:00 PM, and Tuesday, November 17th, 7:00-8:30 PM | This event will take place online via Zoom. Please register below. This event will be ASL interpreted and closed captioned.

Watch the recording for Part 1, Show & Tell: Intergenerational Screenings and Conversation here:

Watch the recording of Part 3, Public Film Screenings and Conversation here:

Program and Event Description:

In 1994 Professor Alexandra Juhasz (Brooklyn College) recorded a research meeting, Womxn of Vision, about the history of feminist media at Women Make Movies. 40 feminist media makers and scholars converged to discuss topics that remain relevant today: feminist film and video history, distribution, access, activism, and much more. Participants included Cheryl Dunye, Yvonne Rainer, Shu Lea Cheang, Annie Sprinkle, Abigail Child, Su Freidrich, Sarah Schulman, Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski,Shari Frilot and many more notable artists/makers/thinkers. With support from The Center for the Humanities, the 4+ hour VHS recording of the meeting has found a new home on an interactive website where it can be viewed and annotated.

We invite you to join us on November 16th and 17th to re-activate this archival document again through three intergenerational engagements. Original participants will converse with new generations of queer/feminist mediamakers and audience members will have opportunities to share and reflect on new media. Hosting this as a virtual event creates a self-reflexive layer to this project’s focus on technology, accessibility, and annotation.

Over three related gatherings, this two-day event will consider: What significant changes have occurred since this original discussion 25 years ago? What are we still fighting for? What comes next? What part can we each play in the history, present and future of feminist media?

PROGRAM

Monday, November 16th, 1:00-4:00 PM
Intergenerational screening and conversation

This afternoon gathering and workshop will invite intergenerational pairs of filmmakers to present their work, comment, and share reactions, ideas, and related media prompted by the original Women Make Movies recording within a group setting.

Stills from “Two Women” by Juanita Szczepanski and Pharah Diaz

Part 1: Show and Tell, 1:00-2:30 PM

Selected inter-generational pairs will share a clip from the original recording, a clip of their own media, and ideas prompted by the two. Audience members will respond in the chat: a building document of the two-day event which will be paired with the recording of the presentation.

1. Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski and Pharah Diaz: a family connection

AIDS activist video-maker, Juanita Mohammed Szczepanski, who attended the original research meeting in NY, will share poetry video as well as insights about community made video, particularly for Black women and girls, with her granddaughter, Pharah.

2. Valerie Soe and Mila Zuo: mentor and fan

Valerie Soe, writer and experimental video-maker, attended a research meeting for Women of Vision in San Francisco in the 1990s. She will be in conversation with the next-gen scholar and artist, Mila Zuo. Both share an interest in transnational Asian and Asian/American cinemas, film philosophy, acting and performance, star studies, feminist and queer theory, and critical race and ethnicity studies.

3. Frances Negron-Muntaner and Elisabetta Diorio: student/teacher

Puerto Rican filmmaker, writer, and scholar, Frances Negron-Muntaner, who was interviewed in the original book and documentary, both called Women of Vision, will continue a conversation with her undergraduate student, Elisabetta Diorio, that developed from the recent return to the project.

Click here to Register for Part 1: Show and Tell.

Part 2: Present and Engage, 3:00-4:00 PM

Just as the pairs in the Show and Tell did, participants will be asked to come with two prepared media clips—a few key minutes from the original meeting and another clip of feminist media inspired by the meeting—to share and discuss with their break-out group. We will pair you, or you can sign up as a pair. Please come prepared for this hands on, interactive, small-group session.

Click here to sign up in advance to participate in Part 2: Present and Engage.

Tuesday, November 17th 7:00-8:30 PM
Part 3: Public Screening and Conversation

Join us for Part 3 of “Collective Visions: The Past, Present, and Future of Feminist Media,” for a public screening with two filmmakers from the original ‘94 gathering Cheryl Dunye andShu Lea Cheang, who will be joined by two contemporary CUNY film students and makersNeha Gautam (Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema) andDiva Martinez(Brooklyn College) who will screen their own short works. The screenings will followed by a moderated discussion by Devon Narine-Singh (MA student in Screen Studies, Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema) and Alex Juhasz & Angela Aguayo, co-editors of the Feminist Media Histories special issue, “Informed Historical Reveries,” Vol. 5 Issue 4, October 2019, 1-18.

Please click here to Register for this Part 3: Virtual Screening and Conversation.

SCREENINGS:

Shu Lea Cheang will be screening Episode 1 (14min) of WONDERS WANDER – Con Brujas, Avanzamos (With witches, we move), on migrant queers.

Screening of Cheryl Dunye’s 1990 film Janine (9 mins)

Screeningof Sex Fish(directed by Shu Lea Cheang) in which water signifies the relation between the sexualization of nature and the naturalization of sexuality.

Neha Gautam will screen from her documentary “Where the Light Enters”

This event is co-sponsored by the VHS Archives working group from the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and was generously made possible through a Community Partnership grant with Humanities NY.