(HUDSON, N.Y.) – The Colony of Light — a provisionally utopian collective of artists and filmmakers which first convened and collaborated in July 2013 at MoMA PS1, NYC – reunite for a week-long residency at Basilica Hudson this August, where they will be collaborating on new work and will present two public programs of films, videos, and performances on Friday, August 15, and Saturday, August 16, 2014. Each night will feature an entirely different program of recent work by Colony members Basma Alsharif, Peter Burr, Bonnie Jones, Ted Kennedy, Jodie Mack, Xander Marro, Ben Russell, Jonathan Schwartz, Fern Silva, Ruth Somalo, all of whom will be in attendance for discussion.
The first iteration of the Colony was inspired by, and initiated around Ben Rivers and Ben Russell’s film A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness, exploring the themes of Utopia, collective living, and “dark optimism”. Ben Russell is a media artist and curator whose films, installations, and performances foster a deep engagement with the history and semiotics of the moving image. A 2008 Guggenheim Fellow, his work has screened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Centre Georges Pompidou, Rotterdam Film Festival, Viennale, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others.
Basilica Screenings is a film series that presents an array of works from new and repertory narrative features, documentaries, experimental films, to video and media art, often with filmmakers and special guests in attendance for a discussion following the screenings. Programmed by Basilica Hudson’s film curator Aily Nash, and creative directors Melissa Auf der Maur and Tony Stone.
Prior iterations of Basilica Screenings have brought filmmakers including Albert Maysles, who showed and discussed many of his rarely seen works from the 50s and 70s, essential cinematic works such as Susan Sontag’s Promised Lands, Chris Marker’s Sans Soleil, internationally renown contemporary directors including Jem Cohen, Deborah Stratman, and Denis Co?te?, and rare radical documentary forms such as Yumen produced by Harvard’s Sensory Ethnography Lab.
Artist owned and operated since 2010, Basilica Hudson is a reclaimed 19th century factory converted into an art, performance, production and event space. Only two hours from New York City, and located just steps from the Hudson Amtrak station on the waterfront of the historic city of Hudson, New York. The 17,000 square feet of a variety of indoor and outdoor spaces constructed of industrial materials with a diverse floor plan, makes Basilica Hudson an ideal location for music, film and art festivals and events.