material + time: Film Program

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Rea Tajiri, "Lordville," 2014

video still. Courtesy of Rea Tajiri.

As part of the exhibition material + time, currently on view at the University of Saskatchewan Kenderdine Art Gallery, three films that expand on themes of temporality, materiality and built form will be presented. Each work investigates complex and layered accounts of historical moments and worldviews, often bringing societal ambitions for progress into question, as suggested in a narrative sequence from Daniel Eisenberg’s Persistence:

“things have become better than they were a year ago, though not much. Or, has one simply grown used to the rubble?”

All screenings are free of charge to the public. Guests must comply with University of Saskatchewan COVID-19 protocols. Directions to the University of Saskatchewan Neatby-Timlin Theatre can be found here. 

Rea Tajiri: Lordville (2014) 

University Of Saskatchewan Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts Building 241)

February 17th, 2022, 7:00 PM CST

Runtime: 67 Minutes

Considering ghosts, the act of walking, and demarcations of ownership, Lordville asks “What does it mean to own the land?” Environmental scientist Tom Wessels reads timelines through physical landscape; Native American genealogist Sheila Spencer Stover gives an account of her relative, Betia Van Dunk, a Minisink woman who married a founder of Lordville but was unable to inherit their property. Lordville examines a once-prosperous town defined by its remote geography and problematic exchanges between Native American and settler communities. The film approaches a historiography based on the reading of environment and its interconnectedness to culture. Rea Tajiri is a Philadelphia-based filmmaker and educator who has written and directed an eclectic body of dramatic, experimental and documentary films currently in commercial and educational distribution. Tajiri was born in Chicago, Illinois where her parents resettled after her father served in the 442nd regiment during WWII. She earned her BFA and MFA degree from the California Institute of the Arts where she studied studio art. Upon graduation, Tajiri began working in video art, having two early works included in the Whitney Biennials of 1989 and 1991. One of her early works, History and Memory, went on to receive the Distinguished Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association and a Special Jury Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival. Tajiri teaches as an Associate Professor at Temple University in the Film Media Arts Department. (Description and biography courtesy of Rea Tajiri)

Daniel Eisenberg: Persistence (1997)

University Of Saskatchewan Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts Building 241)

March 3rd, 2022, 7:00 PM CST Runtime: 81 Minutes

With Introduction And Closing Remarks By Daniel Eisenberg

“Persistence was shot in 1991-1992 in Berlin and edited along with films shot by U.S. Signal Corps cameramen in 1945-1946 that were obtained from Department of Defense archives. Interspersed through these materials are filmic quotations from Rossellini's Germany: Year Zero, also shot in 1946. 

“Persistence is a meditation on the time just after a great historical event, about what is common to moments such as these, about the continuous and discontinuous threads of history. The film is also about various kinds of cinematic observation: personal, documentary, fictional; and our attachment to these traditional modes of observation that necessarily shape our view of events."  - From "Notes for Persistence," written by Daniel Eisenberg on occasion of the Berlin Film Festival, 1997.

Daniel Eisenberg’s films and videos challenge the conventions of non-fiction film representation and production. Over the last three decades, he has forged a unique body of films that have become internationally recognized for expanding the boundaries between traditions of the personal avant-garde film and historical documentary. His films have been screened throughout Europe, Asia, and North America with solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, the Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, the American Museum of the Moving Image in New York, the Musée du Cinema, Brussels, De Unie, Rotterdam, and Kino Arsenal, Berlin. Eisenberg lives and works in Chicago and is a Professor in the departments of Film/Video/New Media/Animation, and Visual and Critical Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.(Biography courtesy of Daniel Eisenberg)

Sky Hopinka: maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (2020)

University Of Saskatchewan Neatby-Timlin Theatre (Arts Building 241)

March 17th, 2022, 7:00 PM CST

Runtime: 80 Minutes

A poetic, experimental debut feature circling the origin of the death myth from the Chinookan people in the Pacific Northwest, małni – towards the ocean, towards the shore follows two people as they wander through their surrounding nature, the spirit world, and something much deeper inside. At its centre are Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier, who take separate paths contemplating their afterlife, rebirth, and death. Probing questions about humanity’s place on earth and other worlds, Sky Hopinka’s film will have audiences thinking (and dreaming) about it long after.

Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, California, Portland, Oregon, and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo, and text work centres around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary, and non-fiction forms of media. He received his BA from Portland State University in Liberal Arts and his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He currently teaches at Bard College in Film and Electronic Arts.(Description courtesy of Grasshopper Film; biography courtesy of Sky Hopinka)