Still from Frances Bodomo, “Afronauts” (2014) (screenshot by the author via Vimeo)
In conjunction with its essential exhibition We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85, the Brooklyn Museum is showcasing moving image works in every genre and medium by Brooklyn-based artists who are young, black, queer, female-identified, and gender-nonconforming. The two-hour-and-50-minute film program kicks off this Thursday, June 8, with four screenings throughout the day. The selected films span most imaginable genres and media, from an animated documentary (Carrie Hawks’s autobiographical short “black enuf” from 2016) to a dramedy web series (Chanelle Aponte Pearson’s 195 Lewis) to alternative history sci-fi (Nuotama Frances Bodomo‘s “Afronauts,” about Zambian exiles competing in the 1960s Space Race).
Curated by the Brooklyn Museum’s Assistant Curator of Public Programs Lauren Argentina Zelaya, the “Black Queer Brooklyn on Film” series takes its inspiration from the Combahee River Collective, a collective of Black feminists formed in 1974, and the manifesto it released in 1977. “[W]e are actively committed to struggling against racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppression, and see as our particular task the development of integrated analysis and practice based upon the fact that the major systems of oppression are interlocking,” it read in part. “The synthesis of these oppressions creates the conditions of our lives.”
Thursdays in June, don’t miss out on our new film series Black Queer Brooklyn on Film: https://t.co/igP2A6oRFU pic.twitter.com/jt2HIrgWdN
— Brooklyn Museum (@brooklynmuseum) May 26, 2017
Accordingly, the film series includes a number of works that address responses to specific systems and mechanisms of oppression. For instance, Isabella Reyes’s “i am light” (2016) shows how individuals reject conventional, binary constructions of gender through fashion, style, and self-expression. Naima Ramos-Chapman’s “And Nothing Happened” (2016) portrays the aftermath of sexual assault from a survivor’s perspective. And Stefani Saintonge’s episode from the Essence documentary series Black Girl Magic, which follows young women as they navigate the foster care system. If you can’t make it this week, don’t worry — the program screens every Thursday through June 29.
When: Thursday, June 8, with screenings at 11am, 2pm, 5pm, and 8pm (free with admission)
Where: Brooklyn Museum (200 Eastern Parkway, Prospect Heights, Brooklyn)
More info here.
