AMPLIFY: Season One Highlights
Through its short 6-month-long history, AMPLIFY: media arts for collective strength, has already made an impact on viewers and participants both locally and nationally: our first two curated showcases of students’ work have more than 1,200 combined views; our artists have been invited to exhibit nationally and landed higher profile production gigs; our concept, ethos and praxis have been discussed in scholarly publications and forums; our partnership with liquid blackness on the research project and events surrounding the work of Elissa Blount Moorhead have been supported by the National Council for Public History and all of these events have been archived on the liquid blackness website and, hence, automatically at the Library of Congress. Our call for work and ethos has inspired original work and our commitment to social justice prompted us to partner with Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz to host a “know your rights” training for media makers, conducted in the context of her Film for Social Change class.
Over these months we also spent a great deal of time reflecting on the values that birthed AMPLIFY. We are a collective of filmmakers, curators, writers, and scholars who came together to provide an alternative to institutional violence by creating a space centered in care. We demonstrate this care through a variety of commitments including exhibitions of student works that challenge anti-Blackness; public dialogue concerning the thoughtful deployment of moving images toward exposing and dismantling systemic oppressions; fostering of career pathways for BIPOC, Queer, and variously-abled filmmakers; and supporting local initiatives in Atlanta wherever possible.
Learn more about our Season One activities below.
Common Ground Exhibit: Artists Reimagining Community
In the early Fall 2020, Jennifer Vanderpool Adjunct Visual Art Department professor from California Lutheran University contacted documentary filmmaker, spoken word artist djones (Derrick A Jones) who is a doctoral student in Moving Image Studies at GSU about showing his 2008 film 631 during a curated event called Common Ground: Artists Reimagining Community and to be in conversation with Dr. James E. Young, Distinguished Professor Emeritus and Founding Director of the Institute for Holocaust, Genocide, and Memory Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for a lecture titled, “Memories of Home: Memorial, Meaning, and Filmmaking”. djones was also asked to curate other filmmakers work who, in turn would also choose other participants to the event.
As a result, three AMPLIFY artists—Kia Pooler, Josh Cleveland and Zameh Omonuwa and an additional GSU alum whose work had been developed during the collaboration between Prof. Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz and Dr. Alessandra Raengo, Aesthetics Appropriate to Conditions, Yusef Ferguson—showed their work within this context.
Featuring works by: djones. Kia Pooler. Josh Cleveland, Zameh Omonuwa , and Yusef Ferguson (An Aesthetic Appropriate to Conditions Collaboration)
Visual Studies Interview
Stills from Josh Cleveland’s IG short Cleveland’s “Happy Birthday Breonna Taylor” were also published in the context of an interview that Dr. Alessandra Raengo gave to the Journal of Visual Studies, Vol. 35(2/3), 2020 a special double issue dedicated to the visual culture of the 2020 summer of protests.
National Council on Public History Grant
On behalf of AMPLIFY and in partnership with liquid blackness Prof. Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz received a grant from the National Council on Public History which supported a liquid blackness event with artist, curator, filmmaker and writer Elissa Blount Moorhead, which included a teach-in, a keynote and a masterclass. The event was titled: Facing the Band: Elissa Blount Moorhead and the (Ana)architectures of Community Ties
Dr. Petermon’s Presentation
On October 21, 2020, Dr. Jade Petermon discussed community building as a response to media violence at a roundtable organized by the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Carsey Wolf Center.
The event was titled TV News & Racial Justice in the U.S: Critical Reflections on a 2020 Letter-Writing Campaign. With Anna Everett, Brandy Monk-Payton, Lisa Parks, Jade Petermon
Prof. Collier Panel Presentation
Sojourna Collier was a panel guest for New Voices in Black Cinema & ACT NOW Foundation for a webinar panel discussion with screenwriters, educators, and filmmakers on approaches to the craft of writing for Film & TV on November 10. Additional guests – Dr. Jamal Joseph (Columbia Univ Chair Grad Film School, Academy Nom., Producer, Screenwriter), Letitia Guillory (Screenwriter, Playwright, Producer). Roderick Giles- (Screenwriter, Emmy nominated Director, Producer).
Know Your Rights training for media makers
Prof. Aggie Ebrahimi Bazaz also organized a “know your rights” training for media makers in conjunction with her Film for Social Change class. The event hosted lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild and community organizers. The event was reported on by Mainline Zine.
Outreach Partnerships
Throughout these events, AMPLIFY shared outreach with values collaborators:
and