Civil Disobedience July 18 – October 29, 2017

Home , Laura Poitras, Madeline Anderson, Paper Tiger Television

MIT List Visual Arts Center 20 Ames Street, Building E15 Cambridge MA 02139 listart.mit.edu Civil Disobedience July 18 – October 29, 2017

COVER Patricia Silva, Mass Swell (still),2016, single-channel video, sound, 14:07 min. Courtesy the artist.

ABOVE Third World Newsreel, America (still), 1969, single-channel video, sound, 30 min. Courtesy Third World Newsreel. Civil Disobedience Bakalar Gallery July 18 – October 29, 2017

List Projects: Civil Disobedience presents a program of documentaries, news footage, artist’s films and videos focusing on moments of political resistance and public demonstration from the early 20th century through today. Featuring records from 1930s “hunger marches,” the historic Civil Rights and women’s movements, anti-war action, gay liberation and AIDS activism, the Black Lives Matter movement, and recent Women’s Marches, the exhibition considers the history of resistance as well as the role that artists and documentarians play in chronicling and confronting abuses of power and social injustice.

DAILY SCREENING PROGRAM

1. The Workers Film and Photo League

The National Hunger March, 1931; 11 min. writers, and projectionists in the 1930s, America Today and The World in Review, dedicated to documenting the US Labor 1932; 11 min. Movement and using film and photography The Workers Film and Photo League was an for social change. Courtesy MoMA organization of filmmakers, photographers, Circulating Film & Video Library.

2. The 1960s: Civil Rights Movement

Videofreex, Fred Hampton: Black Panthers Madeline Anderson, I Am Somebody, 1970; in Chicago, 1969; 23:10 min. 29:43 min. Formed in 1969 when David Cort and Madeline Anderson is a pioneering African- Parry Teasdale met at the Woodstock American television and documentary Music Festival, the Videofreex was a video producer, director, editor, and writer. Her collective that organized around the use groundbreaking short film,I Am Somebody, of portable consumer video equipment to documents a strike in 1969 at the Medical produce independent media. From 1969 College Hospital of the University of South to 1978, the collective produced several Carolina organized by over 400 black thousands of video tapes, installations, and women workers standing in solidarity to multimedia events. In this video, Videofreex demand a fair wage increase. Courtesy members interview Black Panther Party Icarus Films. leader Fred Hampton shortly before his death at the hands of Chicago police. Courtesy Video Data Bank (VDB). Kevin Jerome Everson and Claudrena N. 1960s and early 1970s. The filmmakers 4. Protest Actions at MIT Harold, We Demand, 2016; 10:20 min. restage scenes from a ten-day period This film by Kevin Jerome Everson and of unprecedented student upheaval at Richard Leacock, excerpts from November sequences from an unfinished feature- Claudrena N. Harold tells the story of the University, when Roebuck, the first Actions, 1969; 17:35 min. length documentary that focused on the black president of UVA’s Student Council, the anti-Vietnam War Movement from Richard Leacock, a pioneering filmmaker anti-Vietnam War actions on campus in late confronted a series of political challenges the perspective of James R. Roebuck, a associated with the Direct Camera 1969. The full-length film will be screened and existential dilemmas. Courtesy Picture northern-born African-American student movement, was co-founder of and teacher on October 19 and 26 (see Thursday Night Palace Pictures. at the University of Virginia during the late at MIT’s film school from 1968 through Screenings for details). Courtesy MIT 1989. November Actions consists of four Museum. 3. The 1960s: Social Unrest and Anti-War Protest 5. Women’s Liberation, Gay and Gender Rights, Storm de Hirsch, Trap Dance, 1968; Third World Newsreel, America, 1969; 1:52 min. 32 min. AIDS Activism

Storm de Hirsch, an American poet and Third World Newsreel is an alternative Third World Newsreel, Up Against the Wall Gregg Bordowitz, some aspects of a shared filmmaker, was a central figure in the 1960s media arts organization founded in 1967 Ms. America, 1969; 6:09 min. lifestyle, 1986; 24:40 min. avant-garde film scene in New York City. supporting the production and distribution Up Against the Wall Ms. America is an early Artist, writer, and activist Gregg Bordowitz “An Angry Arts ‘protest film’ with black and of independent film and video by and about document of women’s liberation activist made several videos about the AIDS white visuals,” in the artist’s words, this people of color and social justice issues. tactics, presenting footage from the 1968 epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s, an hand-scratched work combines abstract This newsreel is a document of the anti-war Miss America contest in which women alternative to the mainstream media’s imagery and appropriated footage including movement in the US, featuring excerpts introduced a sheep as winner to parody the coverage of the disease and providing an images of fighter planes dropping bombs in and interviews from a meeting of the group sexism of the pageant. Courtesy Third World outlet for activist groups such as ACT UP Vietnam. Courtesy Film-Makers’ Cooperative. Vietnam Veterans Against the War, protests Newsreel. (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), of which of the Black Panthers, and clashes between he was a member. This video begins with a Leonard M. Henny, Peace Pickets Arrested anti-war protesters and the police, among Barbara Hammer, Sisters!, 1974, 8:08 min. response to the 1982 Supreme Court ruling for Disturbing the Peace, 1968; 6:40 min. others. Courtesy Third World Newsreel. Barbara Hammer’s Sisters! is an early upholding a sodomy law in the State of Dutch filmmaker, writer, and educator document of lesbian activism, capturing Georgia, effectively targeting gay men. Leonard M. Henny focused on the field Firing Line, excerpt from Episode 99: scenes from the First Women’s March in Courtesy Video Data Bank (VDB). of visual sociology and was known for William F. Buckley and Allen Ginsberg, 1968; San Francisco and The West Coast Lesbian his socially engaged documentary films. 13:24 min. Feminist Conference at UCLA, both in Tara Mateik, Toilet Training: Law and Order in Peace Pickets Arrested for Disturbing the In this television interview excerpt from the 1973. Courtesy the artist and Electronic Arts the Bathroom, 2003; 26:23 min. Peace depicts the preparations for and the long running public affairs seriesFiring Line, Intermix (EAI). In this experimental documentary from development of the October 1967 non- world views collide as conservative host 2003, Tara Mateik, an artist, curator, and violent, anti-draft demonstration at the William F. Buckley interviews counterculture activist, looks at the psychological toll, Oakland Induction Center that led to the luminary Allen Ginsberg. Courtesy Hoover health problems, and physical abuse arrest of Joan Baez and 20 other pacifists. Institution Archives. suffered by transgender people forced to Courtesy Film-Makers’ Cooperative. use bathrooms that do not correspond with the gender of their own identification. Courtesy the artist. 6. Economic Disparity and Political Polarization Patricia Silva, Mass Swell, 2016; 14:07 min. PBS NewsHour, Interview with Ta-Nehisi In Mass Swell, Lisbon-born, New York- Coates, 2015; 7:05 min. Videofreex, Money, 1970; 2:52 min. C-SPAN, excerpt from live coverage based filmmaker Patricia Silva counteracts In an interview on PBS’s NewsHour, author This short video features a deadpan of the Taxpayer March on Washington, dominant media coverage of Ferguson Ta-Nehisi Coates discusses the history of performative action by Skip Blumberg in September 12, 2009; 17:04 min. protestors following the killing of Michael violence directed against black people in the Lower Manhattan that is cut short by a The Taxpayer March on Washington, also Brown in 2014. Filming live coverage off her United States and his 2015 book Between security officer. Courtesy Video Data Bank known as the 9/12 Tea Party, was a Tea computer screen, she shows the central the World and Me, which was published in the (VDB). Party protest march from Freedom Plaza role of black women in organizing direct midst of the Black Lives Matter movement to the United States Capitol in Washington, actions, and underlines the role technology and takes the form of a letter to his teenage Paper Tiger Television, Tompkins Square DC. Organized by political advocacy group plays in facilitating expanded forms of public son. Courtesy PBS NewsHour. Park: Operation Class Warfare on the Lower FreedomWorks, this C-SPAN footage access and political organization. Courtesy East Side, 1992; 34:36 min. captures the opening segment of the the artist. Paper Tiger Television, a collective of event. Protesters rallied against taxation, artists, activists, and scholars, has made the size of government, abortion, President 8. Women’s Marches and Other Recent Protests experimental and alternative community- Barack Obama’s proposed health care oriented media utilizing public access reform, federal spending, and other issues. Jem Cohen, Birth of a Nation, 2017; Meerkat Media Collective, To Be Heard: television since 1981. Tompkins Square Courtesy C-SPAN. 9:47 min. Day #13 of the Trump Administration, 2017; Park: Operation Class Warfare on the Lower In Birth of a Nation, Jem Cohen trains his 3:17 min. East Side looks at the transformation of Jem Cohen, Gravity Hill Newsreels: Occupy camera on the events around Donald The Yemeni Bodega Strike in New York the titular park in downtown Manhattan Wall Street no. 2 and no.3, 2011; 3:48 min. Trump’s presidential inauguration as well as City was initiated by approximately 5,000 that was once home to marginalized and and 5:15 min. the next day’s protests. Courtesy Video Data business owners and their supporters in disenfranchised communities, documenting Jem Cohen is a New York-based filmmaker Bank (VDB). response to President Trump’s executive forced gentrification through real estate best known for his observational street order to restrict immigration from seven developers and the ensuing class-based footage and intimate portraits, capturing Muslim countries, including Yemen. Meerkat resistance. Courtesy Paper Tiger Television. overlooked moments in time. His Gravity Associated Press (AP), footage from Media Collective is based in New York Hill Newsreels document the Occupy Wall Women’s March, 2017; 3:17 min. and documents the actions of the day, Street movement in and around Zuccotti The Women’s March on Washington, ranging from an interview with a single Park in New York City’s Wall Street district mounted on January 21, 2017, was Yemeni-American business owner to a in 2011 in a number of short vignettes. organized to advocate for human rights, rally at Borough Hall in downtown Brooklyn. Courtesy Video Data Bank (VDB). women’s rights, healthcare reform, Courtesy Meerkat Media Collective. reproductive rights, and gender equality, 7. Black Lives Matter among other issues. Presenting a range Paper Tiger Television, Standing Rock of voices and actions following the day of Women’s March, 2016; 3:45 min. Democracy Now!, From Ferguson to NYC, Ja’Tovia Gary, An Ecstatic Experience, 2016; Donald Trump’s inauguration, the footage Standing Rock Women’s March documents Protesters Mark National Day of Protest 6:11 min. captures the scale and energy of the the silent prayer led by indigenous women Against Police Brutality, 2014; 4:17 min. Ja’Tovia Gary’s work in film and video demonstration. Courtesy Associated Press and allies following the protests against the The independent news outlet Democracy confronts traditional notions of Archives. Dakota Access Pipeline as well as the violent Now! presents diverse sources of news and representation, race, gender, sexuality, and response by police. Courtesy Paper Tiger information. This short program recaps power. Addressing recent acts of police Television. protests against police brutality around the violence against black people and the country following the shooting of unarmed historical Civil Rights movement, An Ecstatic black teenager Michael Brown by a white Experience is, she states, a “meditative police officer in 2014.Courtesy Democracy invocation on transcendence as a means of Now!. restoration.” Courtesy the artist. Thursday Night Screenings PUBLIC PROGRAMS Each Thursday of the exhibition, a feature film will be screened in the Bakalar Gallery, 6–8 PM. Me(dia) Response: Self-Awareness and Activism through Art-Making with Artist Kate Gilbert July 20, 27; August 3 September 28; October 5, 12 Friday, August 18, 12–2 PM I Am Not Your Negro, 2016 Citizenfour, 2014 Making a Statement Directed by Raoul Peck Directed by Laura Poitras 95 min. 114 min. Friday, September 15, 12–2 PM Raoul Peck’s 2016 film envisions James Laura Poitras’s 2014 documentary begins Building an Understanding Baldwin’s unfinished book project with the filmmaker receiving encrypted Friday, October 20, 12–2 PM “Remember This House,” a proposal to his emails from someone with information Creative Action literary agent that was to be a revolutionary, on the US government’s massive personal account of the lives and covert-surveillance programs. Poitras All programs are free and open to the general public. RSVPs are required. assassinations of three of his close friends: and reporter Glenn Greenwald meet For more information about these events and to RSVP visit: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther the informant in Hong Kong to learn the listart.mit.edu/events-programs. King, Jr. At the time of Baldwin’s death in alias “CITIZENFOUR” belongs to Edward 1987, he left behind only 30 completed Snowden, a high-level former CIA analyst. Please note: pages of this manuscript. What unfolds is the handing over of The Bakalar Gallery will be temporarily closed August 22–27. classified documents providing evidence August 10, 17, 31 Daily screening program will resume on August 29. of mass indiscriminate and illegal invasions Stonewall Uprising, 2010 of privacy by the National Security Agency Directed by David Heilbroner and Kate Davis (NSA) and, eventually, Snowden’s current 82 min. asylum in Russia. Stonewall Uprising documents the 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a popular Oct 19, 26 gay bar in NYC’s Greenwich Village. Sparking November Actions, 1970/2017 six days of violent protests, the Stonewall Directed by Richard Leacock rebellion was a turning point in the gay 76 min. liberation movement and modern fight for Richard Leacock, a pioneering filmmaker LGBTQ rights in the United States. associated with the Direct Camera movement, was co-founder of and teacher September 7, 14, 21 at MIT’s film school from 1968 through Let the Fire Burn, 2013 1989. November Actions consists of four Directed by Jason Osder sequences from an unfinished feature- 95 min. length documentary that focused on the Let the Fire Burn presents, via television Anti-Vietnam War actions on campus in proceedings and news footage, the late 1969. events leading up to and surrounding an underreported 1985 stand-off between the black liberation group MOVE and the Philadelphia Police Department. List Projects: Civil Disobedience is curated by Henriette Huldisch, Curator, and Yuri Stone, Assistant Curator, MIT List Visual Arts Center.