Monday June 24, 7:30pm
YES: Frances Arpaia / Devon Narine-Singh
Artists in person

Still from “Splish Splash” (2018) by Frances Arpaia – Image courtesy of the artist

Microscope is very pleased to present a screening of works by artists Frances Arpaia and Devon Narine-Singh, as part of our emerging artist series YES. The two filmmakers use moving image as a vehicle to share their personal histories often in relation to identity, as both experienced in their inner lives and represented on screen.

Arpaia’s preference for lo-fi and low definition formats such as Super 8mm film and Pixelvision video, infuses the images on screen with a sense of refusal to be easily consumed, as she portrays life as a trans woman with her group of friends in New York. “Almost!” is a collection of readings in the form of music videos in which young trans poets tell their experiences by reciting to the camera their released writings, while Vertov gets an update in “Trans with a Movie Camera”, in Arpaia’s words a “cine-essay exploring the potentials for transfeminine representation in film”.

Narine-Singh’s work is grounded on his intimate life, his thought processes and emotions in relationship to feelings of being “displaced”. Imagery from buried and mud-coated 16mm film, iPhone video, old tapes and other footage is used to situate himself within the context of past events and those occurring in the present. Sound for Narine-Singh often becomes a carrier of meaning both metaphorically and literally, with choices ranging from 90s grunge to recordings of phone conversations with family members. In “I woke up in the mud and picked up a camera for Jonas” Narine-Singh ponders on recovery and recently passed mentor filmmakers, the presence of whom is now only perceivable through their films.

Arpaia and Narine-Singh will be in attendance and available for a Q&A following the screening.

General admission $8
Students & Members $6

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Frances Arpaia is a queer, trans woman who lives and works in Brooklyn. Her films explore explore everything from queer romance and sexuality on screen, to the subversion of masculine story tropes and power structures.

Devon Narine-Singh (b.1997) is a filmmaker, curator and scholar based in Queens and Long Island. His work has shown at The Film-Makers Coop, the New School, UltraCinema and The Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival. He is a graduate of the SUNY Purchase Film Conservatory. He has curated screenings for The Film-Makers Coop and Maysles Cinema. As a scholar he has presented at NYU Cinema Studies. His work examines political issues of identity through the lens of personal experiences and cultural memory.

Program:

Afloat
By Devon Narine-Singh, HD video, 2017, 7 minutes
Using the water cycle as a way of exploring OCD.

There are no trains in trinidad
By Devon Narine-Singh, HD video, 2018, 10 minutes
A personal exploration of a political landscape. Tracing threads of my biracial identity and my hometowns infamous 1980s murder case to create a sense of displacement both internally and externally.

Who shall save me
By Devon Narine-Singh, HD video, 2019, 2 minutes
My great-grandfather left my dad a book on spiritual practices. I take found footage related to Indo-Caribbean identity to create an uncertain filmic prayer.

I woke up in the mud and picked up a camera for Jonas
By Devon Narine-Singh, HD video, 2019, 14 minutes
Combining hand processed buried underground and coated in mud 16mm, found footage and iPhone footage to create an ever morphing portait of recovery but also a film of presences not physically in a space but still felt. Be it a friend in recovery who drinks again or a legendary filmmaker who leaves behind a world of cinema to inhabit, their ghostly memory lingers on in this exploration of recovery, relapse and the in between.

A Trans With a Movie Camera
By Frances Arpaia, Super 8mm to digital, 2018, 13 minutes 
A non-narrative cine-essay exploring the potentials for transfeminine representation in film. 

Let’s Go to the Trans Ladies Picnic
By Frances Arpaia, 35mm film to digital, 2015, 1 minute
Short film documenting the trans ladies picnic community in Brooklyn.

Splish Splash
By Frances Arpaia, 35mm to digital, 2018, 2 minutes
A transsexual pool party in the Hamptons

Almost!
By Frances Arpaia, 35mm film and digital video, 2017, 20 minutes
A series of poetry music videos chronicling work released the summer of 2016. 

FORM FILM
35mm film to digital, 2019, 1 minute
The interplay of light and shadow as experienced by the sculpted form. 

Still from “Afloat” (2017) by Devon Narine-Singh – Image courtesy of the artist

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Microscope Gallery Event Series 2019 is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC).