Labor

Workers Leaving the Factory — such was the title of the first cinema film ever shown in public. For 45 seconds, this still-existent sequence depicts workers at the photographic products factory in Lyon, owned by the brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière, hurrying, closely packed, out of the shadows of the factory gates and into the afternoon sun. Only here, in departing, are the workers visible as a social group. But where are they going? To a meeting? To the barricades? Or simply home?

The “greca”, the meander, is the main symbol weaved in the textiles made by the Navarro sisters, from Santo Tomás Jalieza, México. A geometrical form of an endless braid of diamonds, the “greca” represents corn (an entity worshiped by the pre-hispanic civilisations of Mesoamerica). It stands for sustenance, but materialises as well the feminine power of producing abundance and fertility - the textiles displaying this ongoing motives could be read as invocations for life and growth.

THE DRESS: is a projection prop created for a performance piece at the Art Institute in 1984. It was installed in March 2021, suspended in front of a building on the Bowery as both a memorial to my grandmother, a Hungarian immigrant and master seamstress, and to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, of 1911, which occurred a few blocks north of this site.

-EJay Sims

"Bricks are the resonating fundamentals of society. Bricks are layers of clay that sound like records, just simply too thick. Like records they appear in series, but every brick is slightly different – not just another brick in the wall. Bricks create spaces, organize social relations and store knowledge on social structures. They resonate in a way that tells us if they are good enough or not. Bricks form the fundamental sound of our societies, but we haven't learned to listen to them.

An investigative documentary on police brutality that uses the Rodney King incident as a springboard to analyze the inner workings of the LAPD under the leadership of former police chief, Daryl Gates. Containing hard-hitting footage of police violence, the tape also depicts communities working against the daily occupation of their neighborhoods. Through interviews with LAPD officers and supervisors, the tape reveals what life is like behind the “thin blue line” and documents a national crisis of violence.

A cross-generational binding of three filmmakers seeking alternative possibilities to the power structures they are inherently part of. Each woman extends her reach to a subject she is outside of. Vever grew out of the abandoned film projects of Maya Deren and Barbara Hammer. Shot at the furthest point of a motorcycle trip Hammer took to Guatemala in 1975, and laced through with Deren’s reflections of failure, encounter and initiation in 1950s Haiti.

A vever is a symbolic drawing used in Haitian Voodoo to invoke Loa, or god.

Lighthouse is about the labor system and the factory town in Southern China and how individualism is influenced by the social and political infrastructure. Guangdong District is the largest Metropolitan area in one of China's wealthiest provinces, and one of its cities, Guangzhou, attracts farmers from the countryside looking for factory work. The viewer is led to actively compose narratives through the poetic and the sublime images. It opens borders that separate cultural, linguistic and historical differences in the global labor systems.

Originally part of a multi-media installation at the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, King Anthracite documents the lives, work, and early deaths of Lithuanian immigrants (including Kybartas’ ancestors) who mined the Pennsylvania coalfields at the turn of century. Oral histories of miners detail their impressions of the United States and the hardships they encountered, including black lung disease and other occupational hazards that turned wives into widows and children into orphans.

I Stare at You and Dream is a slice of life melodrama that journeys to the core of interrelationships. This film juxtaposes and links the lives of four people: the filmmaker, Susan Mogul; her friend, Rosie Sanchez; Rosie’s teenage daughter, Alejandra (Alex) Sanchez; and Ray Aguilar; Susan’s-on-and-off boyfriend. Tender and unflinching, each character gradually reveals their desires, wounds, and romantic entanglements in the context of their everyday lives.

An investigative documentary on police brutality that uses the Rodney King incident as a springboard to analyze the inner workings of the LAPD under the leadership of former police chief, Daryl Gates. Containing hard-hitting footage of police violence, the tape also depicts communities working against the daily occupation of their neighborhoods. Through interviews with LAPD officers and supervisors, the tape reveals what life is like behind the “thin blue line” and documents a national crisis of violence.

Twenty Minutes is about the design and usage of the pulley from the era of Leonardo Da Vinci to the early 21st Century.

Cast: Clifton Bazemore, Derek Bazemore. Animation: Aaron Biscombe.

This title is only available on Broad Daylight and Other Times: Selected Works of Kevin Jerome Everson.