Sorta sad to see the wheat-pasted stairway facade go, but 1500 pieces of paper only last so long in the elements… just about two years, it turns out.

We will be doing more to tweak the emperors’s new clothes in the future, but we are definitely excited about this fresh start. It means, of course, all further events at UD will be black-tie only.

Hillevi and I are at “THE FLAAAHERTY”. Having arrived, we’ve added a few self-conscious ‘A’s to the film seminar named after explorer and documentarian Robert Flaherty. I only understood the gathering before through its somewhat cultish mythology, prevelant among the few out there who are absolutely committed to daring non-fiction films. It is a week long and has an ambitous and potentially exhausting schedule of screenings and discussions. Unlike a festival or almost all other cultural-binge activity, the films are kept entirely secret until they are screened. It’s like box after box of crackerjacks; you just don’t know what little prize you might get. With the thoughtfulness of this year’s curator, Chi-hui Yang, however, everyone seems to be expecting the best.

I hope to record some thoughts and reflections here over the course of the seminar, but all I can say right now is that it is a total pleasure to be engaged in this attempt at a temporary utopia. Projects with such pure idealist principals seem few and far between these days, especially outside of the academic sphere. But, given an appropriate level of skeptical awareness, I think they can be really transformative experiences. We shall see. Maybe Hillevi will turn into a frog… she noticed they were strangely absent from Colgate’s idylic campus in Hamilton, NY.

Check out this AIR article. Mentions Kara and her influences, UD being one of them:
http://www.airmedia.org/PageInfo.php?PageID=390

UnionDocs is happy to announce that we have received a development grant from the Experimental Television Center!

The grant is from the Experimental Television Center’s Media Technical Assistance Fund, and will support UnionDocs’ ability to strenthen our organizational capacity. In other words, we got a grant to take classes on…how to get more grants!

UD resident Sarah Lawson and Operations Assistant Amber Cortes will be taking Grantseeker Training Courses at the Foundation Center through June, learning the ins and outs of writing proposals and budgets, cultivating alliances with funders, and building relationships in the world of foundations. These seminars will enable UnionDocs to build a strong base of funders to ensure the future survival of the UnionDocs Residency and other programs, such as the Documentary Bodega series.

As the saying goes, teach a man to fish…

More about the Experimental Television Center:

The Experimental Television Center was founded in 1971, an outgrowth of a media access program established by Ralph Hocking at Binghamton University in 1969;. Today, the Center continues to provide support and services to the media arts community. Part of their mission is to support the creation of work using new electronic media technologies, and to encourage an informed appreciation of media art by supporting the exhibition of film and electronic works by artists and by arts and cultural organizations in the New York state. They offer grants to media arts organizations, residencies for artists, and a video history project.

Check out their website here.