In equestrian culture, Groundwork is comprised of exercises that mature a horse’s response to its rider’s cues and the environment. This program of landscape films from the 1960s through 1980s similarly demonstrates structural and formal methods used by artists to finely tune their perception of natural phenomena. In The Sky on Location, French cinematographer Babette Mangolte focuses her camera on seasonal light and its variegation of the American West’s colour palette. American avant-garde filmmaker Marie Menken uses stop-motion capture to slow down the wonder of night-sky gazing in Moonplay. Using optical printing techniques, feminist artist Barbara Hammer explores the proximity and distance between the human body and the natural world in Puget Sound, Yosemite and the Yucatán. This selection of 16mm works reflects the visual and linguistic iconography of conceptual art, feminist art and land art that Feminist Land Art Retreat draws on in their new 3-channel video work, No Man’s Land.

The Sky on Location | Babette Mangolte/USA 1982. 78 min. 16mm

Element | Amy Greenfield/USA 1973. 11.5 min. 16mm.
Moonplay | Marie Menken/USA 1964. 5 min. 16mm 

Place Mattes | Barbara Hammer/USA 1987. 8 min. 16mm
Western Gothic | Sandra Meigs/Canada, 1985. 11 min. 16mm

Programmed by Amy Kazymerchyk

Co-presented with SFU Galleries, in parallel with Feminist Land Art Retreat’s exhibition Free Rein at the Audain Gallery, which runs from May 31 until August 4, 2018. sfugalleries.ca

Image: still from Babette Mangolte, The Sky on Location, 1982, courtesy of The Film-makers' Cooperative