Saturday Short

Today's Saturday Short is the trailer for Through the Repellent Fence: A Land Art Film (2017) from director Sam Wainwright Douglas. The 74-minute documentary is about the conception and construction of a two-mile-long artwork by the interdisciplinary arts collective Postcommodity* between the borders of Mexico and the United States. The work comprises 28 ten-foot balloons, each bearing a pair of "open eyes", an indigenous cultural symbol, that float over the border wall dividing Douglas, Arizona, from Agua Prieta, Sonora. The balloons serve as "a metaphorical suture stitching together cultures that have inhabited these lands long before borders were drawn."

A screening of the film will take place on January 20 at 3:00 p.m. in the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C. The presentation, co-sponsored by the National Museum of the American Indian, is free. A discussion with producer David Hartstein and artist Cristobal Martinez follows the screening.

* The collective includes artists Raven Chacon (Navajo), Cristobal Martinez (Mestizo), and Kade L. Twist (Cherokee), who have collaborated with Steven Yazzie and others to investigate through an indigenous lens public perceptions, beliefs, and actions and their effects on indigenous cultures.

Postcommodity on FaceBook