Vanessa Renwick
2021
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Vanessa Renwick
A swan song for the factory age. Every autumn, a South America-bound colony of Vaux’s Swifts numbering in the tens of thousands enjoy a layover in a Portland, Oregon elementary school chimney. Sunset brings a vortex of swirling shapes, whose each tiny piece combines to form a hypnotic, ever-changing pattern; an equinoctial rhythm beats in every swoop of the organic overhead spiral. The defunct industrial chimney is our own demise, and yet the relentless, fluid choreography of the tiny migrants signals a new start, the turning wheel.
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Crowdog
Vanessa Renwick
Vanessa Renwick
This journal entry of a film describes a young artist in the midst of over two years of shoe-free peregrinations, with a spare, mesmerizing narration that reflects a landscape ranging from the slimy underbelly of dirty Chicago to a hitchhiker’s perch in the back of a dusty pickup truck.
Crowdog
Toxic Shock
Vanessa Renwick
A visceral personal response to surviving a near-fatal case of Toxic Shock Syndrome. Toxic Shock combines intimate taboos of needles, blood and tampons with tried and true hands-on self-defense, set to a spare, penetrating and unknown score provided by a cassette tape gifted by a forgotten friend. A call to arms; what will you do in defense of your body? "Penetration up the wazoo, blood, fire, gas, needles, tampons, liquid power and cocktails of the burning sort. My experimental response to sweating out near death with Toxic Shock Syndrome." --Vanessa Renwick
Toxic Shock
Richart
Dawn Smallman, Vanessa Renwick
A tour through the mind of obsessive collagist and front yard artist Richard Tracy. While confined to a psychiatric ward at age 50, "Richart" Tracy made this discovery: "If you want to get out of the hospital - start making art like this. They will get rid of you - fast!" Seventeen years later, he's turned three residential lots into a massive black and white maze of his visions. This documentary takes a trip through his yard, art, methods and his mind. Wait until you see what he keeps in his basement!
Richart
Crack House
Vanessa Renwick
Mosaic artist Jeffrey Bale transformed a former Portland crack house into a stone art paradise, an urban sanctuary and bird haven. Crack House, edited in-camera, is a cosmic burst of color and sound created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the introduction of Super-8 film.
CRACK HOUSE
Cold Holy Water
Vanessa Renwick
A video made with vintage 16mm educational footage transferred to video and layered. The images came to my mind for the 17 days that the orca whale mother pushed her dead infant around in the Salish Sea this past fall 2018 in what biologists referred to as a "tour of grief". This piece to me is about how the ocean is a gigantic home to so many we know very little about, who are migrating all the time. And it is about hope for something better. And love of your offspring. And it is a peaceful slow and hypnotizing work, with the fluidity and beauty of the oceans inhabitants. Marisa Anderson created a guitar score and wave and whale breath sounds were added to create a complimentary sound design, the waves and the breathes of the whales soothing and connecting with our own breaths.
Cold Holy Water
Britton, South Dakota
Vanessa Renwick
Ivan Besse managed the Strand movie theater manager in Britton, South Dakota during the Depression. Besse owned a 16mm camera and used it to shoot people at their various activities around town during the day. He screened the local footage before feature films and newsreels as a lure to entice paying customers into the theater.
Britton, South Dakota
