Trans Experimental: A Group Exhibit
On view from mid-February through mid-April 2021 is Trans Experimental, a group show of experimental film and animation by trans artists in the greater Boston area. Experimental film deals with perception, abstraction, non-commercial techniques. This includes photo chemical abstraction, hand painted animation, digital glitch work, found footage collage, and many others. Many trans artists find solace in practices of experimental film that are based on the re-collage, the tactical, the degradation and reclamation. This work lends itself to reflect on the trans body and identity. The show, curated by Hogan Seidel and organized by the Boston LGBTQAI Artist Alliance (BLAA), showcases the work of five artists- Malic Amalya, Gina Kamentsky, Edward Perkins, Hogan Seidel and Gabby Sumney.
Gabby Sumney, Watching the Leaves Age As I Do the Same (2021)
Gabby Sumney (née Follett) is an Afro-Latinx, queer, nonbinary nonfiction filmmaker with a disability based in Boston, Massachusetts. They work in experimental nonfiction with a special emphasis on issues of identity and personal narrative. Their work has screened at curated screenings and festivals across the US and Europe including Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Indie Grits, and Fracto Film Encounter. Gabby is also the creator of This Week in Experimental, a weekly newsletter that features links to experimental films & videos, reading suggestions, and optional assignments.
Gina Kamenstky, Stunting Cunts
Gina Kamentsky’s practice as an artist is divided between creating Kinetic Sculpture and making experimental animated films. The common thread between both mediums is time, movement and generative process. In their animation work, they explore issues of movement, abstraction and structure working directly, painting and drawing on 35 and 70mm movie film. Kamentsky works mainly on found footage from movie trailers. This allows them to experiment with surface and leave artifacts from the original films. The graphic quality of these elements adds rhythm and variation to the work and creates new meaning disconnected from the original subject matter of the found elements. The field size of the film frame is very small so they limit themself to working with simple graphic elements. After preparing the surface they place the film directly over a small video screen and use live video footage as movement reference for inking, painting and gluing small shards of film on the surface. Their goal is to preserve the quality of movement in the original video, limiting themself to simple shapes and lines in the small frame. Creating structure in this medium presents an interesting challenge. Kamentsky works intuitively and allow a film to emerge out of a long series of experiments. Sound is central to building the structure of a piece, gathering found spoken elements and creating field recordings. In the editing stage, rather than matching sound and image, they incorporate inappropriate sound and move image and sound out of sync to create unexpected and ambiguous meaning.
Hogan Seidel, curator, Herackles and Torn Silk (2021)
Hogan Seidel is an interdisciplinary media artist working in the traditions of experimental film, photochemical abstraction, and collage. They examine queer, southern, religious identity through the plastic medium of celluloid. Torn from the swamps of Florida, Hogan now resides in Boston, where they live with their husband and dog, Meatloaf. Hogan’s 16mm films and expanded cinema works have screened at festivals such as London Experimental, Indie Grits, ULTRA Cinema, Revolutions Per Minute, Artifact, Saigon Experimental, FLEX, Fracto Experimental, and PRISME.
Edward Perkins ,Feelin’ Myself (2017) & Reverie (2019)
Edward Perkins is a 29-year-old nonbinary artist living in Boston with their partner. They work across multiple mediums often using found imagery and manipulating it through additive and destructive processes. Most of the vintage imagery they use is discarded family photos that they purchase in lots online. Perkins also uses vintage films, magazines, and books.
Malic Amalya, RUN! (2020)
Malic Amalya is a moving image artist, working across 16mm film, 35mm slides, and video. His work is situated between non-linear avant-garde traditions, the oppositional and self-reflective aesthetic considerations of queercore, and an intersectional feminist politic centered around prison abolition. Malic’s films and videos have screened in festivals, museums, and queer bars across the world, including Festival Les Merveilles (Paris), Ann Arbor Film Festival, Light Field Film Festival (San Francisco), MIX Copenhagen, EXiS Festival (Seoul), the Transgender Museum of Art and Herstory exhibition at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, “Buttcocks” at Club SchwuZ in Berlin, “Trqpiteca” at Danny’s in Chicago, and “Other Stranger” at The Stud in San Francisco. Malic Amalya is an Assistant Professor of Experimental Media and 16mm Filmmaking at Emerson College.