Kith and Kin

This program takes the family and the home as a starting point for a dialogic and polyphonic exploration of black identity. In the 1990s, the two US American filmmakers Julie Dash and Marlon Riggs each developed comparable counterpoints within black US American pop culture, setting up a cooperative and associative network of kith and kin. This created an alternative cultural memory enabling individual multiple identities, thus offering support and orientation in the light of critical social intersections. A new generation of filmmakers such as Martine Syms and Kahlil Joseph are expanding this repertoire today.

Program

Martine Syms, Kahlil Joseph, Memory Palace, 2015, 2 min
Julie Dash, Relatives, 1989, 8 min
Marlon Riggs, Black Is…Black Ain’t, 1995, 87 min

Presented by Leander Gussmann

Leander Gussmann is an art and cultural studies scholar. He lives and works in Vienna.