JUNE FILM SERIES
weekly film presentations
June 9 - July 4, 2021
JASIA KA
“BROOKLYN RED CAPS” 2021
JUNE 9 - 13, 2021 (Opening Reception June 12, 6-9pm)
Jasia Ka’s “Brooklyn Red Caps” is a film that profiles the late captain of the Brooklyn Red Caps, Otis Hughes in this uplifting documentary short. One of the first black cycling teams, this multi-generational group includes cyclists of all levels, including prospective and past Olympians. The group gets together every week in Prospect Park and goes for epic rides all around the Tri-State area, while also offering each other support through life’s many ups and downs.
KAJIN KIM
“MANEKI NEKO” 2019
JUNE 16 - 20, 2021 (Opening Reception June 19, 6-9pm)
Kajin Kim’s 2019 film is focused on a lucky cat charm called by the same name. The artist’s plays with the idea of how this object is observed by society and the superstitious and consumerist desires associated with “Neko”. The artist argues that these aspects are derived from the same phantasmic search for comfort—creating a talismanic image, as an extension of the imagination, to compensate for the deficiencies existing in reality; and that by consuming the commodified image we seek in vain effort to improve our mood, rather than doing so in any practical purpose. While this quest may just be a momentary illusion, it has accumulated over time into a collective obsession. The object becomes something that the subject attaches to, worships, and feels fulfilled by. Thus, creating a cheapened idolatry, and transient addictive euphoria that protects people from harm by removing them from sites of contestation.
JOSEPH COCHRAN II
“FUSILLADE” 2016
June 23 - 27, 2021 (Opening Reception June 26, 6-9pm)
Conceived by Joseph Cochran II as a visual study in Shanghai, China, Fusillade is a series of images critiquing the audio-visual capital we consume. From the advent of television until now, we have been subscribed to spectacle after spectacle. Cochran’s film comments on the notion that this imagery is transmitted to us with such speed and fervor, that one can only feel overwhelmed. In the film the artist poses the question as to the concept of can this problematization of reception only further sunken modern society into a space of inherent meaninglessness? Leading to the bigger question of how can we escape from such an isolating barrage?
JOIRI MINAYA
“SIBONEY” 2014
June 23 - 27, 2021 (July 1, 6-9pm)
Joiri Minaya’s “Siboney”, was a documented performance in two parts, at once the process of a mural painting, and the destruction of it. The video, in the first act, captures the artist painstakingly copying the tropical pattern of a found piece of fabric on a museum wall, juxtaposed with subtitles that gather ideas around Minaya’s concepts and reflections. During the process of exploring the collection of the museum (Centro León in Santiago, D.R.), where the performance took place, she formed a dialogue between Siboney and a painting by Vela Zanetti, of a dancing mulatta, which also appears in the video. Once the mural is finished, after a month of intense labor and execution, Minaya wets her body, rubbing it against the wall in a rhythmic fashion, transforming, distorting, and destroying the mural, while an adaptation of the song Siboney by Connie Francis soundtracks the finale of the film.
