Monday March 15 – Thursday March 18, 10:30pm PT
An Evening with Joanna Raczynska
Curated by Devon Narine-Singh
Q&A with artist and curator on Monday March 15 at 8:30pm ET
Microscope is very pleased to present an online screening and rare retrospective of films by Baltimore-based filmmaker and curator Joanna Raczynska, programmed by artist and filmmaker Devon Narine-Singh. The works by Raczynska span 24 years, from the stunning 16mm b&w film portrait “Kathleene” (1997) to the new work-in-progress that will be unveiled for the event, under the working title “Strange Intimacy,” which combines recent video cell phone footage with 16mm film footage the artist shot over 20 years ago.
From Narine-Singh:
“In discussing this retrospective of her work Joanna Raczynska didn’t have characters or plots. It brought to mind a comment Betzy Bromberg had made at her retrospective at Anthology in describing the career trajectory of her work. Like Bromberg (and one could even argue Terrence Malick), each successive film of Raczynska pushes forward central textual inquiries and strips the need for structures. Raczynska has received wide acclaim as a programmer. As a moving image artist much is ready to be discovered. Tonight’s program offers a christmas lullaby become anew (Nonfunctional Seasonal Confessional), a woman’s entanglement with iconography (Kathleene) and a new work in progress that sees Raczynska operating in masterform.”
The online program will go live on Monday March 15 at 7:30pm ET and will remain available for the following 72 hours. It is preceded by video introductions by Joanna Raczynska and Devon Narine-Singh, as well as Microscope’s co-directors Elle Burchill and Andrea Monti.
A Q&A and live chat with Raczynska and Narine-Singh will follow the program on Monday March 15th at 8:30pm ET.
TO WATCH:
Passes for viewing give full access to video introduction, film program, and live Q&A.
General admission $8 (Valid through Thursday March 18, 10:30pm PT)Member admission $6 (Valid through Thursday March 18, 10:30pm PT)
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Joanna Raczynska is a film programmer and maker based in Baltimore, MD who organizes screenings and artist presentations for the film department at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (2009-present). She has worked for a variety of non-profit organizations including Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; and the Baltimore Museum of Art, among others. She has served as a juror for the Berwick International Film and Media Arts Festival; Ann Arbor Film Festival; Images Festival, Toronto; and the Cleveland International Film Festival, among others, and participated as a panelist for a variety of funding agencies including the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation Rubys Artist Grants and the New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artists Program. Joanna earned her master’s degree with distinction in documentary by practice, Royal Holloway College, University of London (2001). Her short films have screened at various international sites, including the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland; ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany; Sheffield Doc/Fest and LUX, London, UK; Hallwalls and Squeaky Wheel, Buffalo, NY.
Devon Narine-Singh is a filmmaker and curator. His works have screened at Microscope Gallery, YOUKI International Youth Media Festival, NOFLASH Video Show, UltraCinema, The New School and The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. He has presented screenings and presentations at The Film-Makers Coop, Maysles Cinema, NYU Cinema Studies and UnionDocs. Along with Alia Ayman and Suneil Sanzgiri, he is one of the programmers in residency for the 2020-2021 Flaherty NYC. He has a BFA in Filmmaking from SUNY Purchase and is currently pursuing his MA in Screen Studies at Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema at Brooklyn College.
Program:
Kathleene
By Joanna Raczynska, 16mm film to digital, silent, 1997, 4 minutes
A portrait of a friend, a rebuff of heteronormative marriage, and a chance to get acquainted with the rewind crank and some mattes.
Essential Chair
By Joanna Raczynska, 16mm film to digital, 1997, 5 minutes
Exploring the platonic ideal of what it means to be “a father” through found and original footage, my relationship to my ageing dad is part memoir and part performance.
Good Faith Effort
By Joanna Raczynska, miniDV video, 2006, 12 minutes
In 1989, after fifty years of occupation, Poland held its first free post-WWII elections and ushered in a democratic republic system of government. Good Faith Effort asks young Poles in the capital of Warsaw to remember that pivotal moment. Supported in part by CEC Artslink and the Experimental Television Center’s Finishing Funds, a program supported by the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts.
The Philosopher’s Revision
By Joanna Raczynska, miniDV, 2001, 10 minutes
„All biographies are lies.“ Leszek Kolakowski (1927 – 2009), Polish philosopher and author, taught at All Souls College, Oxford University, where this short biography was recorded.
Nonfunctional Seasonal Confessional
By Joanna Raczynska, analog video to miniDV, 2003, 3 minutes
Recorded while in residence at the Experimental Television Center, Owego, NY where several analog processing tools combine for a short satire of the confessional video mode.
Work in progress (Strange Intimacy, working title)
By Joanna Raczynska, digital video and 16mm film, approximately 5 minutes
Using recent footage from cell phones and a twenty-year old roll of black and white 16mm film exposed underground at the ancient Wieliczka salt mine near Krakow, Poland.