Scholar Erika Balsom and filmmaker Eric Baudelaire propose to explore how the revolutionary languages of the 1960s and 1970s – languages of documentary filmmaking, artistic expression and political action alike – resonate today. How have the energies of this moment persisted and mutated? How can they provide a resource for thinking through the urgencies of the present, for the future? In a moment when hope for political transformation feels increasingly necessary, what forms and acts can best respond to the need to re-imagine reality?

We’re thrilled to present our public Dialogue with Erika and Eric as part of the program of the pair’s UNDO FELLOWSHIP research topic, Languages of Liberation.

This program is a part of BREAK ꩜UT: A SYMPOSIUM OF SORTS, which celebrates the research, writing and filmmaking initiated during The UNDO Fellowship. We are excited to share the ideas and work resulting from the inaugural year of this endeavor and are eager to hear your questions, thoughts and feedback.

You’re invited to a series of screenings, study groups, and discussions spread over the first two weekends in March . Choose a single thread of inquiry, or weave the connections between them all. Tune into the stream to watch and listen in or fill out a simple application up for an UNDO STUDY GROUP to get the reader and join a rigorous and creative discussion.

Register for a reminder to catch our public Film Program with Eric’s work on March 4th for a full program experience. If you want to engage a draft of Erika’s writing and take an even deeper dive, our Languages of Liberation Study Group is open by application. Learn more and APPLY!

Eric Baudelaire and Erika Balsom will engage in conversation to discuss their work and their shared research question.

Erika Balsom is senior lecturer in Film Studies at King’s College London. She is the author of ‘After Uniqueness: A History of Film and Video Art in Circulation’ and ‘Exhibiting Cinema in Contemporary Art’, as well as the co-editor of ‘Documentary Across Disciplines’. She contributes to magazines such as Artforum and Frieze, and has published in scholarly journals including Cinema Journal and Grey Room. In 2018, she was awarded a Leverhulme Prize and the Kovacs essay award from SCMS.

Eric Baudelaire (1973, Salt Lake City) lives and works in Paris, France. After training as a social scientist, Baudelaire established himself as a visual artist often focused on social and historical research. Since 2010, he has devoted himself more seriously to filmmaking. His feature films include Also Known As Jihadi (2017), Letters to Max (2014), The Ugly One (2013) and The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images (2011).