Maker of essayistic, emotionally resonant and formally experimental films that refuse traditional narrative forms, Ja’Tovia Gary’s practice also includes cinematic sculptures, cinematic poems, multi-channel video environments and installations. Inspired by, and in conversation with poetry, literature, music and history, Gary works with video, super 8 and 16 mm, looping in archival and found footage. Often working on projects in multiple iterations – viewed in museum, gallery and theatrical contexts – she layers and weaves multiple styles and worlds, as in The Giverny Document where live interviews conducted by Gary with girls and women on a streetcorner in Harlem abut a clip of Nina Simone in concert, juxtaposed with lyrical passages of Gary herself shot in Claude Monet’s garden. Placing herself on screen, the artist made visible as both subject and witness, she challenges the notion of “objective” filmmaking. Imbuing the surface with a deeply personal presence, one finds audio distortion, collage, glitches, mark-of-the-hand manipulations, in short, imagination in the service of crafting and asserting a new reality, re-thinking and re-configuring not only the past but what narrative can be in presenting and honoring the multiplicity of black women past present and future and, in turn, shaping of public perception.

photo: JerSean Gollatt