attaque[e]r le visible: corporal interventions
8 March, 8 p.m.
MAYA DEREN & VALIE EXPORT

At the heart of Naomi Uman’s handmade experimental portraits and ethnographies are the folk traditions of the rural women in her host communities. Maintaining her vulnerability by not hiding her face, biases, or active participation behind the camera, Uman explores the intimacy of these women’s lives and joins their day-to-day activities, her camera focused on repetitive manual practices, agrarian ways of living, women’s work, and the intersection of ethnography, portraiture, and self-portraiture. Growing out of her previous work in Ukraine and Mexico, three sparks depicts life in northern Albania where the customary laws of the Kanun rule society. A trilogy-in-one, it begins as a meditation on Uman’s relationship with the country and an unwanted personal sacrifice that imbues her film with mythic, metaphysical implications. three sparks unfolds as a portrayal of village life and women’s gender roles before concluding with a self-reflexive video piece made in collaboration with the villagers, in a final abrupt shift.