. Conversations at the Edge (CATE)

March 5 – Mariah Garnett: Trouble

Mariah Garnett in person In the early 1970s, Mariah Garnett’s father fled Northern Ireland after being the subject of a BBC documentary about relationships that crossed the country’s violent religious and political divide. Four decades later, the Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker returned to her father’s native Belfast, immersing herself in the city’s sectarian upheavals […]

Feb 6 – An Evening with Vaginal Davis

Vaginal Davis in person Vaginal Davis is a key figure in the history of queer music, performance, and video art. She emerged from Los Angeles’s 1970s queer and punk performance scenes, creating her own mythology during live shows with her “multiracial, maxi-gendered” bands. She turned to video in the late 1980s, mixing identity, fiction, and […]

On Laura Huertas Millán

We look forward to this week’s Conversations at the Edge screening of Sol Negro (2016) and La Libertad (2017) by French-Colombian filmmaker, Laura Huertas Millán. By combining an exploration of political history with personal narrative, Huertas Millán’s films culminate into what she calls “ethnographic fictions”. For additional context and insight into Huertas Millán’s work, below is an […]

March 8 – Laura Huertas Millán: Ethnographic Fictions

Investigating the terrain between fiction and ethnography, French-Colombian filmmaker Laura Huertas Millán has created a multifaceted body of work where political history and personal narrative meet. Her 2016 film Sol Negro is a portrait of Antonia, a Colombian opera singer, her sister, and her niece. Empathy and anger are exchanged between the women as they each reckon […]

On Lee Anne Schmitt

This week, we are excited to welcome Los Angeles-based filmmaker Lee Anne Schmitt for a screening of her latest film Purge This Land (2017), made in collaboration with her partner, experimental jazz and rock musician, Jeff Parker. Through the life and legacy of the radical abolitionist John Brown, Purge This Land reflects on how the shadows of […]

March 1 – Lee Anne Schmitt: Purge This Land

Just before his execution, abolitionist John Brown wrote, “I am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood.” Brown was hung on December 2, 1859, less than two months after he led a raid on a federal armory in an attempt to incite an armed […]

On Alex Gerbaulet

This week we are excited to welcome German artist and filmmaker Alex Gerbaulet to Conversations at the Edge for a screening of her experimental documentaries. Bridging the gap between analysis and poetry, Gerbaulet’s films confront problematic histories and the complex narratives hidden within personally and collectively repressed memory. Included in this screening is Gerbaulet’s 2015 film, Schicht (Shift). Part […]

November 2 – Alex Gerbaulet: Digging Deep

Alluring and enigmatic, the films of German artist Alex Gerbaulet unearth the complex narratives hidden within personally and collectively repressed memory. Utilizing both archival material and footage filmed by the artist herself, Gerbaulet’s documentaries bridge the gap between analysis and poetry. Buildings, space, and the body serve as sites that bear witness to past crime […]

On Wael Shawky

We are excited to screen Cabaret Crusades, Egyptian artist Wael Shawky’s three-part re-staging of the medieval upheaval between the Muslim and Christian worlds. Born in Alexandria in 1971, Wael Shawky makes work that tackles notions of national, religious and artistic identity through film, performance and storytelling. This week, we welcome School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduate student Sama […]

April 13 – Wael Shawky: Cabaret Crusades

The rich and provocative work of Egyptian artist Wael Shawky uses film and performance to explore the complexities of national, religious, and artistic identity. With the three-part Cabaret Crusades, he restages the medieval upheaval between Muslim and Christian worlds with a cast of exquisitely crafted marionettes and score derived from Shia lamentation criers and traditional […]

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