Venue: On the Boards Parking Lot
DRIVE-IN AT ON THE BOARDS WITH THE HENRY ART GALLERY
co-presented by On the Boards and the Henry Art Gallery
curated by the Henry Art Gallery
DATES
Saturday May 1, 2021, 8:30pm
Saturday May 8, 2021, 8:30pm
Saturday May 15, 2021, 8:30pm
On the Boards and the Henry Art Gallery are pleased to co-present a screening series. Curated by the Henry, this multi-evening event features work by various artists who use moving images to respond to colonial mentalities and tactics, from surveillance to capitalism. Drawing from existing and imagined spaces, each of these artworks employ sound and movement to generate potential worlds and futures.
Please join us for these unique viewing experiences. In recent years, the OtB parking lot has been a badminton court, a beer garden, and throughout May, it’s an outdoor drive-in movie theater!
What to Know Before You Visit
Audio - Bring Your FM Radio
All audio will be broadcast through an FM transmitter. Viewers are required to tune in via car radio or cell phone. Please note: not all cellphones have FM capabilities, so make sure to double-check before arriving.
Saturday May 1, 2021, 8:30-10pm
Total run time: 85 min
Enrique Ramírez - Un hombre que camina (A man who walks) (2011-2014; 22 min)
Un hombre que camina (A man who walks) features the world’s largest salt flat near Uyuni, Bolivia, instilling a monumental sense of timelessness. Invested in the loss of regional identity, Enrique Ramírez attempts to reconcile the historical and cultural gaps between Indigenous traditions and homogeneity driven by capitalism. Crafted by Indigenous coal miners to deter the Spanish military, the mask Ramírez wears acts as a relic of colonial resistance and signifies the need to preserve intergenerational, intercultural rituals.
Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic - No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5 (2018; 31 min)
Korakrit Arunanondchai and Alex Gvojic examine the relationships between humans and non-human beings, connecting ritual, fiction, and reality. In the fifth iteration of No history in a room filled with people with funny names, a fictional Thai painter communicates with a drone spirit named Chantri about the consequences of globalization in contemporary Thailand.
Wangechi Mutu and Santigold - The End of Eating Everything (2013; 8 min)
The End of Eating Everything interrogates the destructive nature of overconsumption. The singer Santigold plays a post-apocalyptic creature composed of human limbs and machine parts, possessing a voracious appetite and flying in the darkened sky.
Jacolby Satterwhite - We Are in Hell When We Hurt Each Other (2020, 24 min)
Current social and political conditions permeate Satterwhite’s virtual quasi-utopic universe, created for the Black femme and as tribute to Breonna Taylor. The performative gestures of Satterwhite’s gender-ambiguous fembots serve as tools of resistance, effecting this space of Afrofuturist self-expression. The techno music is based on four songs by the artist’s mother; one of the songs inspired the work’s title, suggesting how inflicting pain on others deepens one’s own.
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Saturday May 8, 2021, 8:30-10pm
Total run time: 87 min
Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla - The Bell, the Digger, and the Tropical Pharmacy (2014; 21 min)|
The film depicts an excavator demolishing the GlaxoSmithKline prescription drug plant in Cidra, Puerto Rico, which closed in 2009 after a former employee exposed severe contamination problems. The excavator possesses a cast-iron bell that transforms into a “sonic digger,” producing a cacophony when smashed into the building. The sound evokes the exploitation enacted by the U.S. and multinational corporations on the people and land of Puerto Rico.
Jumana Manna - A Magical Substance Flows Into Me (2016; 66 min)
The film draws inspiration from Dr. Robert Lachmann, a Jewish-German ethnomusicologist who emigrated to 1930s Palestine. Lachmann founded a radio program for the Palestine Broadcasting Service entitled “Oriental Music” in which he would invite community members to perform their vernacular music. Following in Lachmann’s footsteps, Jumana Manna encounters Kurdish, Moroccan and Yeminite Jews, Samaritans, members of of urban and rural Palestinian communities, Beduoins, and Coptic Christians, and engages them in conversation around their music and existence within the Palestinan landscape.
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Saturday May 15, 2021, 8:30-10pm
Total run time: 93 min
Akosua Adoma Owusu, Drexciya (2010; 12 min)
Set in an abandoned swimming pool in Accra, Ghana, Akosua Adoma Owusu's Drexciya draws on the myth from the Detroit-based electronic band to create an afrofuturist portrait of an underwater subcontinent populated by the unborn children of African women thrown overboard during the Transatlantic slave trade. The Riviera was once known as Ghana's first pleasure beach. A one-time extravagant Ambassador Hotel of post- colonial - early Kwame Nkrumah era, the Riviera Beach Club thrived until the mid-1970's. The Olympic-sized pool, now in a dilapidated state, is used for locals for things other than swimming.
Rodney McMillian - A Migration Tale (2014-2015; 10 min)
A Migration Tale blurs temporal boundaries to tell the story of cyclical racism through its references to the Great Migration, Afrofuturism, and notions of landscape. Adorned with a black cloak and silver mask, Rodney McMillian’s protagonist—a superhero or time traveler—wanders from a veranda in South Carolina to the streets of Harlem.
Martine Syms - Incense, Sweaters and Ice (2017; 69 min)
Incense, Sweaters and Ice is an adaptation of Martine Syms’s performance Misdirected Kiss (2016), which examines Black femininity. Syms shot the work in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Clarksdale, alluding to the routes of the Great Migration. The film explores how the subjects—Girl, Mrs. Queen Esther Bernetta White, and WB (“whiteboy)—move between watching, being watched, and remaining unseen. The camera performs different central roles, raising questions about the neutrality of its gaze and the influence of surveillance on perception and identity.
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Partner Organization
Henry Art Gallery
The Henry Art Gallery was founded as Washington State’s first art museum in 1926, on the principle that art stimulates inquiry, fosters knowledge, and builds healthy communities. Located on the campus of the University of Washington, Seattle, the Henry is internationally recognized as a pioneer in the research and presentation of contemporary art.
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Artist Bios
Jennifer Allora
Born 1974 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Guillermo Calzadilla
Born 1971 in Havana, Cuba; lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico
Jennifer Allora earned a BA from the University of Richmond and a MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Guillermo Calzadilla received a BFA from Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico and a MFA from Bard College. Collaborating since 1995, they have completed residencies at the P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, Long Island City; Whitney Independent Study Program, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito. Allora and Calzadilla were short-listed for the Hugo Boss Prize, Guggenheim Museum, New York, and are recipients of the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst fellowship. They have exhibited worldwide at the Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium; and Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, among others. Their art resides in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan; Baltimore Museum of Art; and Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom.
Korakrit Arunanondchai
Born 1986 in Bangkok, Thailand; lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand and New York, New York
Korakrit Arunanondchai studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and Columbia University. He is the recipient of the Bellas Artes Residency, Batan, Philippines and Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant. He is also an honourree for the NOWNESS Award for breakthrough cultural excellence in film and video art and shortlisted for Generation Art Prize. Arunanonchai has shown his work worldwide, including the Istanbul Biennial; Asian Art Biennial, Taichung, Taiwan; Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Venice Biennale, Italy; and Athens Biennale, Greece. His work is held in the public collections of the Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing, China; Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, Switzerland; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway.
Nuotama Frances Bodomo
Born 1988 in Ghana; lives and works in Lusaka, Zambia and New York, New York
Nuotama Frances Bodomo holds a BA from Columbia University and a MFA from the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She is a 2019 United States Artists Fellow in Film. Her award-winning films have premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; Berlin International Film Festival, Germany; and New Director/New Films Festival, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, New York. Bodomo has exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and and Venice Biennale of Architecture, Italy. She recently served as staff writer and director on HBO’s series Random Acts of Flyness.
Alex Gvojic
Born 1984 in Chicago, Illinois; lives and works in New York, New York
Alex Gvojic earned his BA at the Columbia College Chicago. He has shown his work extensively, such as at the Venice Biennale, Italy; Berlin Biennale, Germany; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France; and MoMA PS1, New York. Gvojic has worked with a wide range of clients, including Vice, W Magazine, Vogue, Tom Ford, and Cover Girl. He was the co-founder of Thunder Horse Video, an art and media collective specializing in environmental design and video production.
Jumana Manna
Born 1987 in Princeton, New Jersey; lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Jumana Manna has studied at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts; Bezalel Academy for Arts and Design; and California Institute of the Arts. Select solo exhibitions have been shown at Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada; Malmö Kunsthall, Sweden; Sculpture Center, New York; and Henie Onstad Museum, Sandvika, Norway. She has participated in group exhibitions worldwide at the Toronto Biennale, Canada; Santa Fe Biennale, New Mexico; Venice Biennale, Italy; and Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon, Portugal. Manna has participated in the Goteborg Film Festival, Sweden; International Film Festival, Rotterdam, Netherlands; and Haifa Independent Film Festival , Israel, among others.
Rodney McMillian
Born 1969 in Columbia, South Carolina; lives in Los Angeles, California
Rodney McMillian has studied at the University of Virginia, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and California Institute of the Arts. He is the recipient of the Suzanne Deal Booth Art Prize, United States Artists Broad Fellowship, Art Matters Grant, William H. Johnson Prize, and Edward L. Ryerson Fellowship. He had recent solo exhibitions at the Aspen Museum of Art; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; and Blaffer Museum of Art, Houston, among others. McMillian’s work has been included in several group exhibitions worldwide, including at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. His work is held in the collections of the San Antonio Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany.
Wangechi Mutu
Born 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya; lives and works in New York, New York
Wangchi Mutu has studied at the United World College of the Atlantic, The New School, Parsons School of Art and Design, Cooper Union, and Yale University. She has had solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Pérez Art Museum Miami, among others. Mutu’s work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including at the Henry Art Gallery, University of Washington, Seattle; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Tate Modern, London, United Kingdom; and Minneapolis Institute of Art. Her work is held in notable collections, such as that of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Montreal, Canada.
Enrique Ramírez
Born 1979 in Santiago, Chile; lives and works in Paris, France and Santiago, Chile
Enrique Ramírez earned a MA from Le Fresnoy–Studio National des Arts Contemporains after studying in Chile. He has received the Discovery Award from Le Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France. His work can be seen across international arenas in both the museum and art fair context, including at the Venice Biennale, Italy; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Museo Amparo, Puebla, Mexico; and Museum of Memory and Human Rights, Santiago, Chile. Ramírez’s work is included in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, Spain; Pérez Art Museum Miami; and Musée d'art contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Paris, France.
Santigold
Born 1976 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; lives and works in Los Angeles, California
Santi White, known professionally as Santigold, holds a BA from Wesleyan University. White co-wrote and produced the singer Res’s debut album How I Do (1999), and was a lead singer in the punk rock band Stiffed. In 2007, White released her first singles Creator and L.E.S. Artistes as a soloist. She has released several albums and mixtapes, including Santogold (2008); Master of My Make-Believe (2012); 99¢ (2016); and I Don’t Want: The Gold Fire Sessions (2018).
Jacolby Satterwhite
Born 1986 in Columbia, South Carolina; lives and works in New York, New York
Jacolby Satterwhite earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts and a MFA from the University of Pennsylvania. He is the 2017 United States Artist Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow. Satterwhite’s work has been presented in numerous exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; New Museum, New York; San Francisco Museum of Art; and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. His work is held in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.
Martine Syms
Born 1988 in Los Angeles, California; lives and works in Los Angeles, California
Martine Syms earned a BFA from the School at the Art Institute of Chicago and a MFA from Bard College. She has presented her work at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, among others. Select solo exhibitions include Contemporary Projects: Martine Syms, Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Serralves, Porto, Portugal; Projects 106: Martine Syms, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Fact and Trouble, Institute of Contemporary Art, London, United Kingdom. Syms served as co-director of the artist-run project space Golden Age, Chicago from 2007 to 2011, and now leads Dominica Publishing. She is a faculty member in the School of Art at the California Institute of the Arts.
Safety and Guidelines
All screenings will be experienced from inside your vehicle.
There will be no ticket sales on site. Tickets are sold online in advance only.
The health and safety of our attendees and staff is our absolute priority. Guests MUST stay in their vehicle.
Bathrooms will be available in the On the Boards theater, however guests are strongly encouraged to not leave their cars unless absolutely necessary.
Our staff has been updated and trained on all safety precautions as laid out by Washington's Safe Start plan. All staff are required to wear a face mask or face cover.
Attendees traveling in one vehicle, or sitting together in the "outside audience" area must reside in the same household.
Attendees must be seated in a passenger seat equipped with a seatbelt.
No alcohol can be consumed on premises.
Our parking lot is just across the street from the main OtB building