Margaret Rorison is filmmaker and curator from Baltimore, MD. Her works often develop from explorations through rural and urban landscapes, combining language, sound and imagery to create installations, films and live 16mm projections. Her recent films explore the visceral nature of memory and its dialogue between space and experience. She is interested in the potentials of storytelling through the use of 16mm projection and sound.
Her work has been exhibited at Anthology Film Archives, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Images Festival, Miami PULSE Art Fair, Mono No Aware VI & VII, Microscope Gallery, The Moscow Museum of Modern Art and The National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. She currently teaches at The Maryland Institute College of Art and conducts workshops in various cities.
Filmmaker will be present for Q&A after the screening.
PROGRAM
PULL/DRIFT 2013 | 16mm to video | 9m | sound
This film documents a unique choreographed performance that took place one late summer afternoon in Patapsco State Park in Baltimore, Maryland. Choreographed by Clarissa Stowell Gregory and performed by The Effervescent Collective. Soundtrack composed by Josh Millrod.
Dark Logic 2015 | 16mm to video | 5m | sound
An ode to the restricted space and surveillance in the skies. Sound derived from a live performance by Mario de Vega Shot in Los Angeles, Summer 2015
Funes el memorioso 2015 | 8mm to 16mm to video | 2m | sound
The final footage of a painter, slowed down to lengthen the memory. Sound by Audrey Chen (voice and cello) & Flandrew Fleisenberg (percussion)
Chorus 2017 | 16mm to video | 2m | silent
a cadence of history between one long pause
Gedanken aus der Luft 2017 | 16mm to video | 6m | sound
Studies of Lichtenberg and The Klingenberg Power Plant, in what is formerly known as East Berlin. Soundtrack by Joke Lanz
The Birds of Chernobyl 2012 | 16mm | 7m | sound
This piece was originally made as a performance with a live collage soundtrack. This is an ode to my grandfather, Harry Bennett and our shared interest in solitude and landscape.
vindmøller 2014 | 16mm | 3 min | sound
This short film is a study of the wind turbines along the shores of Amager, Copenhagen. Triple exposed on one roll of color film, then finding four generations of grain. The soundtrack is a recorded live improvisation by artist Mario de Vega using unstable media and acoustic resonators.
SCANSION 2012 | 16mm to video | 8m | sound
SCANSION is a short 16mm film composed of extensive walks through various Baltimore landscapes. The film has been hand edited like a poem, where cuts function like line breaks, working to establish inherent rhythm and meter.
DER SPAZIERGANG 2013 | 16mm to video | 3m | sound
This film documents long walks throughout Berlin, Germany during the cold days of April 2013. The film is edited in camera and composed of single frame snapshots along with longer moments of glance, captured on one 100’ roll of film. The title comes from a story by Robert Walser.
One Document for Hope 2015 | 16mm | 8m | sound
The sterile and procedural narrative of the Baltimore City Police Scanner on Monday April 27 against precious moments of gathering, celebration and protest in Baltimore from April 28 – May 3, 2015.
Memory of August 2016 | 16mm | 5m | sound
A series of moments captured in room 139. Intimate spaces of time spent with my grandmother, Margaret during a month-long recovery in a rehabilitation center in Baltimore, Maryland.
Departure 2018| 16mm | 6m | sound
A double loop projection incorporating handmade cyanotypes and sound.
TRT: 63 minutes