Stones in Cold Water

This is the story of unruly desire, one that poisons and impoverishes: the tale of a modern King Midas, crossing borders and unearthing everything that is presumed to be valuable. Yet here, the golden shine that should emanate from the king’s touch is missing, and all that’s left is an all-encompassing abstraction. This filmic fable speaks to the anonymous racialized bodies trapped under the impossible demand to fill a growing void that leaves only annihilation in its wake.

This video essay focuses on the landscapes of the Sonoran Desert—and the project of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico—as a way of investigating the manner in which something as seemingly generic as a wall can take on particular political and affective forms. This short provocation explores the ways that violent and distasteful objects create, and subsequently come to characterize, malevolent spectacles.

What happens when a man you've spent years forgetting winds up at your doorstep? Sunny Disposition is the story of Ben, a disgruntled actor, whose desire is to live his life without becoming the father he never knew. Ben returns home after a rehearsal to find a message from a father he hasn't seen in years on his answering machine. Tension rises as Ben and his father meet face-to-face. The next few hours Ben spends with his father will forever determine their relationship. Could their father-son connection be rekindled or will it go up in smoke?

This film investigates the serious play of historical reenactments and their quest to tap into what has been referred to as “magic moments” or “period rushes." These brief flashes are moments of embodied, performance-induced spatial and temporal blurring that allow the reenactor to feel as if they are within the place and time that they are portraying. How might these living history events act as reverent rituals to evoke and honor the memory of constructed socio-political ancestors?

Engaging with the poetry of Langston Hughes, this film investigates the afterlives of Vladimir Lenin in eastern Germany.