Critical Ecology on Film

Some changes in the environment are easy to see while others are more covert. Through the work of four international artists/artist collectives, the Critical Ecology on Film program will expose and tackle questions regarding ecological crises in relation to climate change, inter-species communication, nuclear power, and privatization of the commons. Artists will join professors from across the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences to connect visual culture and the humanities in transdisciplinary conversations that concern the entanglement of politics and our contemporary ecologies. Each film will be screened followed by a conversation. Critical Ecology on Film is organized by Alaina Claire Feldman and takes place on Zoom. Like all Mishkin Gallery events, it is free and open to the public.

April 8, 1pm: Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm (2019), Dr. Yarimar Bonilla in conversation with Professor Rojo Robles Mejias

In this documentary film, Yarimar Bonilla, co-editor of the book Aftershocks of Disaster: Puerto Rico Before and After the Storm, travels through Puerto Rico to interview journalists, poets, photographers, visual artists, and community activists to discuss their perspectives on the island in the wake of Hurricane María. The film explores the ongoing “aftershocks” of the hurricane experienced by Puerto Ricans, which include state failure, social abandonment and disaster capitalism. Through thought-provoking interviews, affective readings, and representations of Puerto Rico’s decaying infrastructure and empowered community, the film explores both the unfolding crisis in Puerto Rico as well as the emergence of new political imaginaries and determination.

Dr. Yarimar Bonilla is the Acting Director of El Centro, the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, as well as Professor in the Department of Africana & Puerto Rican/Latino Studies at Hunter College and the PhD Program in Anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

Professor Rojo Robles Mejias is a Puerto Rican writer, playwright, and filmmaker. He is Lecturer of Black and Latino Studies at Baruch College, CUNY.

April 15, 1pm: Tahlequah (2019), Dominique Knowles in conversation with Professor David Gruber

Since early modern Europe, non-human animals in the West have been reduced to machines, raw material and spectacle, devaluing their lives while creating an anthropocentric hierarchy. To counter this narrative, Dominique Knowles’ video Tahlequah is a tribute to the profound companionship among animals and their capacity to mourn and show empathy for one another. Among them are the eponymous orca Tahlequah, who carried her stillborn calf along with her for seventeen days, and Flint, a chimpanzee who died out of grief for his dead mother.

Dominique Knowles (Bahamian, b. 1996) lives & works in Chicago, IL. Knowles received both his MFA in Painting as a New Artist Society Award scholar in 2020 & BFA in 2017 from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Professor David Gruber is an American marine biologist, a Presidential Professor of Biology and Environmental Sciences at Baruch College and Ph.D. Program in Biology, Graduate Center, CUNY. Gruber is also Lead of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative).

April 22, 1pm: Americium (2017), Erik Blinderman and Lisa Rave in conversation with Professor Alison Griffiths

Taking its title from a man-made radioactive element on the periodic table, “Americium” addresses the literal contamination of sacred lands and the spiritual neglect of an American landscape. The film revolves around the contested long term nuclear storage facility of Yucca Mountain using portraits of individuals and local communities to explore the conflicting ideologies and fantasies of the American West. It is a search for what is invisible and embedded within the landscape, a meditation on what is simultaneously real and imagined. The project is a culmination of several years of research on the subject, with most material being produced just prior to the November 2016 Presidential Election.

Lisa Rave, born 1979 in Guildford/UK, and Erik Blinderman, born 1979, New York, currently live and work in Berlin, Germany and co-run Whole Wall Films. Their work has been shown with institutions, galleries, and cinemas internationally.

Professor Alison Griffiths is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Baruch College, The City University of New York and the CUNY Graduate Center, where she teaches film history, visual studies, and media theory.

April 29, 1pm: Cactus River (2012), Apichatpong Weerasethakul in conversation with Mishkin Gallery Director/Curator Alaina Claire Feldman

World renowned artist and filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Cactus River (Khong Lang Nam) is a short experimental film starring his long-time collaborator Jenjira Pongpas. Weerasethakul’s films are often marked by interplays between organic, natural time and measured cinematic time while drawing from Buddhist narrative structures as well as science fiction. The title of this work is a contradiction evoking a river full of desert plants, but also a very real future for the Mekong due to upstream constructions of Chinese dams. As water levels continue to fall, Jenjira leads a new life after marrying a retired American soldier and changes her name to Nach, also meaning “river.” Both the Mekong and Nach are changing, along with the memories of who and what they once were. CUNY students will submit questions for the artist ahead of time and they will be answered in a pre-recorded interview.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, and film producer. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system, Weerasethakul has directed ten features and dozens of short films. He has won the Un Certain Regard top prize, Jury Prize, and Palm d’Or at the Cannes International Film Festival as well as numerous other awards such as the Principal Prince Claus Award and the Artes Mundi Prize.

Alaina Claire Feldman is the Director/Curator of the Mishkin Gallery and Professor in Baruch’s Arts Administration MA program.