Alicia Smith, Teomama, 2018, video, color, sound, 5:41 min. Courtesy of the artist.

Screening Room

We Begin Again

Uplifting film portraits of cultural and spiritual legacies.

EXHIBITION PREVIEW

1/4
Zackary Drucker, At Least You Know You Exist, 2011, 16mm transferred to video, color, sound. 16:08 min. Courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
Zackary Drucker, At Least You Know You Exist, 2011, 16mm transferred to video, color, sound. 16:08 min. Courtesy of the artist and Luis De Jesus Los Angeles.
Wu Tsang, Girl Talk, 2015, video, color, sound, 4 min. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin
Wu Tsang, Girl Talk, 2015, video, color, sound, 4 min. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin
Kia LaBeija, Goodnight, Kia, 2017, video, color, sound, 5:13 min. Courtesy of the artist and Visual AIDS.
Kia LaBeija, Goodnight, Kia, 2017, video, color, sound, 5:13 min. Courtesy of the artist and Visual AIDS.
Adrian Garcia Gomez, Mikveh, 2016, video, color, sound, 5:30 min. Courtesy of Video Data Bank.
Adrian Garcia Gomez, Mikveh, 2016, video, color, sound, 5:30 min. Courtesy of Video Data Bank.

We Begin Again is a program of short films about the transformative power of spiritual connections and personal relationships. The featured filmmakers weave past and present together by engaging with archival materials and enduring cultural mythologies. By channeling the people and traditions their identities are born out of, these filmmakers call forth the past to assert their voice in the present and propel collective memories into the future.

Bruce Conner, Caroline Monnet, and Alicia Smith draw from Christian, Indigenous, and Chicanx ideologies and archival imagery to explore the possibilities for renewal offered in echoes of the past. Cheryl Dunye and Kia LaBeija revisit home videos from childhood to explore shifting ties in their immediate families, while Adrian Garcia Gomez affirms the validity of his marriage by blending hand-drawn animation with footage of himself and his husband. Zachary Drucker and Wu Tsang document bonds with close friends and mentors sustained through performance and storytelling.

We Begin Again screens daily in the McEvoy Arts Screening Room at the top of the hour.

FEATURED FILMS

Bruce Conner
EASTER MORNING, 2008

Cheryl Dunye
An Untitled Portrait, 1993

Zackary Drucker
At Least You Know You Exist, 2011

Adrian Garcia Gomez
Mikveh, 2016

Kia LaBeija
Goodnight, Kia, 2017

Caroline Monnet
Mobilize, 2015

Alicia Smith
Teomama, 2018

Wu Tsang
Girl Talk, 2015

We Begin Again is curated by Amanda Nudelman, exhibitions and public programs curator, and Dylan Sherman, curatorial assistant. The program is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Rituals of Devotion at McEvoy Arts.