Together with artist and activist Kelly Gallagher, UnionDocs brought media artists of all disciplines together (filmmakers, animators, designers, writers, audio-makers, and more) in a context of mutual support, creative production and solidarity. During a 14 week focused-engagement, the group pursued a set of short creative exercises with the intention of providing aid to social movements in expedient and inventive forms. They came together to form a supportive cohort to engage in master classes, and research sessions with representatives from grass roots organizations and social movements. The result of their time together is this show, Another World is Possible.
Meet Another World is Possible artist lead:
Kelly Gallagher is a filmmaker, animator, and Assistant Professor of Film at Syracuse University. Her award winning films and commissioned animations have screened internationally at venues including: the Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Art, Sundance Film Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, and Black Maria Film Festival. She’s presented solo programs of her work at institutions including: UnionDocs, the Wexner, Haverford College, UC Santa Cruz, Oberlin, and Sight Unseen, among many others. Kelly enthusiastically organizes and facilitates film workshops, camps, and masterclasses for communities and groups of all ages.
EPISODES
EPISODE 1—WHAT IS THE ROLE OF THE ARTIST WHEN THE WORLD HAS ALWAYS BEEN ON FIRE?
USA • 2020 • 16 mins
Meet the 12 artists and filmmakers in the Another World is Possible Collaborative, hear where they are coming from and what they want for the future.
Release Date—July 2021
EPISODE 2—INDIGENOUS FUTURES PART 1
USA • 2020 • 23 mins
We meet Zack Khalil and Jackson Polys of the New Red Order (NRO) who introduce the concept of land acknowledgments, the concept of "the henceforth" and see the collaborative's responses to the New Red Order's prompt.
Release Date—July 2021
Partner Organization—New Red Order
The New Red Order (NRO) is a public secret society dedicated to shifting potential obstructions to Indigenous growth and agency. The NRO’s primary contributors are Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys. Past performances and works include The Savage Philosophy of Endless Acknowledgement (2018) and Culture Capture: Terminal Addition (2019)
Additional Reading & Resources
The Violence Inherent by Adam Khalil and Zack Khalil
Principles for Decolonial Film -MTL Collective - World Records Journal
Life, Film and Decolonial Struggle - Nitasha Dhillon - World Records Journal
The Affectivist Manifesto: Artistic Critique in the 21st Century by Brian Holmes
Original Videos
DECOLONIZE UR MIND APP—Trevor Bazile & Daniel Oxenhandler
LAND AND LIFE—Gabby Sumney, Jenny Jacklin-Stratton, & Christina Zachariades
WHAT IS DECOLONIZATION?—Isabella Vargas & Theodore Wilkins
EPISODE 3—INDIGENOUS FUTURES PART 2
USA • 2020 • 23 mins
More from the New Red Order, plus Nitasha Dhillon and Amin Husain from the MTL Collective, Thirza Jean Cuthand and more collaborative video responses.
Release Date—July 2021
Partner Organization—New Red Order
The New Red Order (NRO) is a public secret society dedicated to shifting potential obstructions to Indigenous growth and agency. The NRO’s primary contributors are Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys. Past performances and works include The Savage Philosophy of Endless Acknowledgement (2018) and Culture Capture: Terminal Addition (2019)
Partner Organization—MTL Collective
Amin Husain and Nitasha Dhillon Are MTL Collective, a collaboration that joins research, aesthetics, organizing, and action in its practice. MTL is a founding member of Tidal: Occupy Theory; Direct Action Front for Palestine; Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.); the Autonomous Direct-Action Wing of Gulf Labor Artist Coalition; Decolonial Cultural Front; and most recently MTL+, the collective facilitating Decolonize This Place.
Additional Reading & Resources
Rethinking the Apocalypse: An Indigenous Anti-Futurist Manifesto by Indigenous Action Media
For an Imperfect Cinema by Julio Garcia Espinosa
Decolonization is not a Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang
Land Back Zine by Regan De Loggans of Indigenous Kinship Collective
Give it Back by New Red Order
EPISODE 3—ABOLITION
USA • 2020 • 22 mins
We meet Red and Rozsa from Survived and Punished who introduce the collaborative to their abolition work, and hear from artists Cameron A. Granger and Boots Riley.
Release Date—July 2021
Partner Organization—Survived and Punished
Survived & Punished (S&P) is a coalition of defense campaigns and grassroots groups committed to eradicating the criminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence and the culture of violence that contributes to it. The all-volunteer organization includes community organizers, survivor advocates, legal experts, and policy advocates including currently and formerly incarcerated survivors.
Additional Reading & Resources
An Excerpt from Time is the Thing a Body Moves Through by T Fleischmann
THE FAGGOTS & THEIR FRIENDS BETWEEN REVOLUTIONS INTRO, June T. Sanders
S&P ANALYSIS & VISION
EPISODE 4—THE CRISIS OF CARE
USA • 2020 • 16 mins
Meet Pirate Care's Marcell Mars and Sea Watch's Morana Miljanović plus hear from photographer June T. Sanders and artist Clyde Petersen who founded The Fellow Ship Artist Residency.
Release Date—July 2021
Partner Organization—Pirate Care
Pirate Care is a transnational research project and a network of activists, scholars and practitioners who stand against the criminalization of solidarity & for a common care infrastructure.
Readings & Resources
Pirate Care, a syllabus
EPISODE 5—MIGRANT JUSTICE
USA • 2020 • 16 mins
We meet Representatives from partner organization, Carroll Gardens Association, who speak to the collaborative about migrant justice, and hear from artists Set Hernandez Rongkilyo and Rodrigo Reyes.
Release Date—July 2021
Partner Organization—Carroll Gardens Nanny Association
The Carroll Gardens Nanny Association is a member led organization where nannies , house cleaners, and home care attendants come together to support each other and raise standards in the domestic work industry. While we are based in Carroll Gardens, we support members from all over New York City.
Readings & Resources
Open Letter from Undocumented Filmmakers
How to respond to pain: Thoughts from a Filipino DACA recipient, SET HERNANDEZ RONGKILYO
The 2020 UnionDocs Collaborative Studio is grateful for support from:
EPISODE 1—2020 COLLABORATIVE STUDIO
KELLY GALLAGHER
Kelly Gallagher is a filmmaker, animator, and Assistant Professor of Film at Syracuse University. Her award winning films and commissioned animations have screened internationally at venues including: the Museum of Modern Art, The National Gallery of Art, Sundance Film Festival, the Smithsonian Institution, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest, the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, and Black Maria Film Festival. She’s presented solo programs of her work at institutions including: UnionDocs, the Wexner, Haverford College, UC Santa Cruz, Oberlin, and Sight Unseen, among many others. Kelly enthusiastically organizes and facilitates film workshops, camps, and masterclasses for communities and groups of all ages.
KATE HINSHAW
Kate E. Hinshaw is a tactile filmmaker and cinematographer who works with digital and film cameras alike. Coming from an experimental background, she is interested in using the cinematic gaze to render visible the interiority of the feminine. Tactily, she works with 16mm and super 8mm film through bleaching, scratching, painting, and burning the emulsion in order to tell stories through color and texture.
Her work has screened at Atlanta Film Festival, Denver Film Festival, Indie Grits, and several small festivals. She earned an MFA at the University of Colorado at Boulder in Spring 2020 where she was awarded a teaching excellence award for her work as a digital cinematography instructor. She currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia where she publishes and curates Analog Cookbook—a film zine that celebrates and shares knowledge of analog filmmaking, darkroom processes, and features artists from all over the world.
ALLISON MINTO
Allison Minto is a Connecticut based visual artist working in photography. She holds a BA in Journalism from Buffalo State College and an MFA in Photography from the Yale School of Art. Her career started out as a backpack journalist for local news and then transitioned into media production for reality and documentary television shows. After years of working in television she decided to follow her passion and share stories through photography. Her work engages with African American archives, history, memory, preservation and maintenance. She sees the archive as a cultural testimony to how we exist, and utilizes this method of making to explore the historical consciousness that transcends personal, past and present narratives.
FRED SCHMIDT-ARENALES
Fred Schmidt-Arenales is an artist, filmmaker, and organizer. His work engages identity and ideology, and to what extent these categories intersect and are distinct. He has presented performances and experimental video and audio works internationally, at venues including Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst und Medien, Graz; Links Hall and Ballroom Projects, Chicago; The Darling Foundry, Montreal; Pieter Performance Space and NAVEL, Los Angeles; LightBox and The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; The Brick Theatre, Abrons Arts Center, and Dixon Place, New York; and Kunsthalle, Vienna. He has also organized workshops, conferences, and classes on collaborative strategies and group dynamics at various arts organizations and schools including the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; Co-Prosperity Sphere, Chicago; and Abrons Arts Center, New York. Fred is a recipient of a 2020 grant from the Graham Foundation for an upcoming film project, Committee of Six, exploring the history of urban renewal in Chicago.
GABBY SUMNEY
Gabby Sumney (née Follett) is an Afro-Latinx, queer, nonbinary nonfiction filmmaker with a disability based in Boston, Massachusetts. They work in experimental nonfiction with a special emphasis on issues of identity and personal narrative. Their work has screened at curated screenings and festivals across the US and Europe including Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival, Indie Grits, and Fracto Film Encounter. Gabby is also the creator of This Week in Experimental, a weekly newsletter that features links to experimental films & videos, reading suggestions, and optional assignments.
THEODORE WILKINS
Theodore Wilkins is a design student at The New School and a multimedia artist with a passion to create and support humanitarian visions with ambitious thought, curiosity and actions toward, learning how to learn new ways to engage in the world.
VALENTINA VARGAS
Her documentary film “Resiliencia”, that was featured in various festivals worldwide, explores the struggles to find the truth, justice and reparations of the women in la Comuna 13, a big sector in her natal city Medellín, that are looking for their loved ones that were disappeared by State forces and paramilitary forces in the infamous military operation “Operación Orión” that took place in 2002.
TREVOR BAZILE
Trevor Bazile is a 24 year old Miami based interdisciplinary artist and filmmaker working in the intersections of music, moving image and performance. Having studied music composition and saxophone performance at NWSA college and UF, Trevor would receive his AA in music composition before beginning to work as an intern and production assistant with the borscht corporation as a part of the organization’s fellowship program. Trevor has had his work supported by over 75 patrons on Kickstarter and has exhibited at festivals such as Eye Slicer, NY and the borscht film festival. Over the course of the fellowship Trevor would take the tools provided by the borscht corp and organize a new artist collective bisque corp (2018-2020) and would act as the group’s creative director.
JULIA HENDRICKSON
Julia Hendrickson is a Toronto based artist working with film, photography and installation. Her practice deals with perception, the limits of image making, and with unseen structures, physical or ideological that render things out. Her projects have explored relationships between myth-making and nationalism, simulation and reality, motherhood and desire. Julia received a BFA in Film Production from Ryerson University and has shown her film work in Hong Kong, Italy, Germany, England and the USA.
DANIEL OXENHANDLER
Daniel Oxenhandler is a filmmaker, researcher and producer of interdisciplinary arts and research projects. He develops collaborative projects and partnerships which bring together unique intersections of film, art and media; academic and scientific research; and community; in order to co-create meaningful narratives and knowledge. He is currently based in Copenhagen, Denmark and has previously lived, learned and worked across the world – in Brazil, Mexico, India, Spain and the US.
ISABELLA VARGAS
Fascinated by the potentials in the intersection of film and activism, Isabella Vargas is a filmmaker who works primarily with documentary and experimental film. She has explored varied subjects, from gender violence in Mexico to performance art criticizing the white gaze. Her work attempts to find poetic ways to construct and deconstruct stories. Prioritizing her community’s stories, she works with marginalized and troubled identity in order to help give a voice to the traditionally silenced.
CHRISTINA AGATHA ZACHARIADES
Christina Agatha Zachariades is a researcher and ethnographic documentarian currently living in Brooklyn, New York. Her curious spirit initially led her to a career in advertising where she worked at Grey, Mccann Erickson, mcgarrybowen, and JWT designing and leading consumer behavior research projects for iconic brands such as MTV, Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, Verizon FiOS, JP Morgan Chase, KRAFT, P&G, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, the Roundabout Theatre Company and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
EPISODE 2 & 3—INDIGENOUS FUTURES
NEW RED ORDER
The New Red Order (NRO) is a public secret society dedicated to shifting potential obstructions to Indigenous growth and agency. The NRO’s primary contributors are Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys. Past performances and works include The Savage Philosophy of Endless Acknowledgement (2018) and Culture Capture: Terminal Addition (2019)
ZACK KHALIL
Zack Khalil is a filmmaker and artist from Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, currently based in Brooklyn, NY. His work centers indigenous narratives in the present—and looks towards the future—through the use of innovative nonfiction forms. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Lincoln Center, Walker Arts Center, New York Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival among other institutions. Khalil is the recipient of various fellowships and grants, including the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship, Sundance Art of Nonfiction Grant, and the Gates Millennium Scholarship. Khalil received his BA from Bard College.
JACKSON POLYS
Jackson Polys is a Tlingit Native visual artist and filmmaker whose work is based between Alaska and New York. His work examines the constraints and potential in the desire for Indigenous advancement, while challenging existing gazes onto traditional Native culture.
NITASHA DHILLON
Nitasha Dhillon is a writer, artist, educator, and organizer. Dhillon has a B.A. in Mathematics from St Stephen’s College, University of Delhi, and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York and School of International Center of Photography. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Department of Media Study – University of Buffalo in New York.
Along with Amin Husain, Dhillon is the founder of MTL Collective, a collaboration that joins research, aesthetics, and action in its practice. MTL Collective, in turn, has founded Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), a direct action wing of Gulf Labor Artist Coalition as well as MTL+, the collective facilitating Decolonize This Place (DTP).
AMIN HUSAIN
Amin Husain’s interests focus on resistance and liberation, movement generated theory and practice. His research and teaching interests span debt and financialization, globalization and political economy, social movements and cultures of resistance, race, class and ethnicity in the media, and postcolonial theory. He is a founding member of Global Ultra Luxury Faction (G.U.L.F.), direct action wing of Gulf Labor Coalition; a member of Gulf Labor Coalition, a self-organized group of artists, writers, architects, curators, and other cultural workers trying to ensure worker’s rights are protected when art, labor and global capital intersect; a founding member and managing editor of Tidal: Occupy Theory, Occupy Strategy, a printed theory and strategy magazine of the Occupy movement; a founding member of MTL, a collective that combines aesthetics, research and organizing in its practice; and founding member of NYC Solidarity with Palestine.
THIRZA CUTHAND
Thirza Jean Cuthand was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1978, and grew up in Saskatoon. Since 1995 she has been making short experimental narrative videos and films about sexuality, madness, Queer identity and love, and Indigeneity, which have screened in festivals internationally, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, Mix Brasil Festival of Sexual Diversity in Sao Paolo, ImagineNATIVE in Toronto, Frameline in San Francisco, Outfest in Los Angeles, and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival. Her work has also exhibited at galleries including the Mendel in Saskatoon, The National Gallery in Ottawa, and The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. She completed her BFA majoring in Film and Video at Emily Carr University of Art and Design in 2005, and her Masters of Arts in Media Production at Ryerson University in 2015.
EPISODE 4—ABOLITION
SURVIVED AND PUNISHED
Survived & Punished (S&P) is a coalition of defense campaigns and grassroots groups committed to eradicating the criminalization of survivors of domestic and sexual violence and the culture of violence that contributes to it. The all-volunteer organization includes community organizers, survivor advocates, legal experts, and policy advocates including currently and formerly incarcerated survivors.
BOOTS RILEY
Boots Riley is a provocative and prolific poet, rapper, songwriter, producer, screenwriter, director, community organizer, and public speaker. His directorial film debut, Sorry to Bother You, premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival and shook the world when it opened in theatres in July 2018. Never afraid to speak his mind, he is fervently dedicated to social change, deeply involved with the Occupy Oakland movement, and one of the leaders of the activist group The Young Comrades. He is also the lead vocalist of the internationally known musical groups The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club, as well as the author of the critically acclaimed Tell Homeland Security-We Are the Bomb. It is clear Boots Riley is a distinct, brave, radical, new American voice across mediums—one who is here to stay and keep inciting change.
CAMERON A. GRANGER
Cameron A. Granger is a video artist and 2017 alumni of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. He uses his work to reconcile his place in the wake of and role as a product of American history and its media. His recent projects include “The Get Free Telethon” a 24 hour livestream community fundraiser sponsored by Red Bull Arts, “Pearl” a body of collaborative works with his mother at Ctrl+Shft in Oakland, and “A library, for you” a traveling community library most recently housed at ikattha project space in Bombay, India. In 2020 his work was collected & commissioned by both the Columbus Museum of Art & Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.
EPISODE 5—THE CRISIS OF CARE
PIRATE CARE
Pirate Care is a research process - primarily based in the transnational European space - that maps the increasingly present forms of activism at the intersection of “care” and “piracy”, which in new and interesting ways are trying to intervene in one of the most important challenges of our time, that is, the ‘crisis of care’ in all its multiple and interconnected dimensions.
MARCELL MARS
Marcell is one of the founders of Multimedial Institute - mi2 and net.culture club mama in Zagreb. He initiated GNU GPL publishing label ' EGOBOO.bits, TamTam platform for on-line collaboration, Ngode software for NGOs financial management.
He initiated skill sharing regular informal meetings of enthusiasts in mama + started skill sharing's satellites g33koskop and 'The Fair of Mean Equipment'. Marcell participated in collaborative artistic projects like NRD Kit of NRD Van group of artists, gifoskop (interactive animation) together with Nikolina Pristas & Maja Marjancic + was a tech developer for projects EditThisBanner (by Lina Kovacevic) and Flying Carpet (by Lala Rascic).
MARCELL MARS
Morana Miljanovic holds a Master of Law degree from the University of Zagreb and a Master of Public Policy degree from Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Her research interests include mutual learning and strategic collaboration across activist communities. Morana previously worked as a researcher on corporate surveillance at Tactical Technology Collective (Data Politics), on practices in international development assistance at the Cities Development Initiative for Asia and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), and consulted organizations on issues such as data protection law and ethics and use of argumentation in advocacy. As a human rights lawyer, she worked at the Croatian Law Centre on projects providing legal aid to asylum seekers and victims of torture, primarily on cases involving detention on grounds of national security (terrorism). At the Croatian Education and Development Network for the Evolution of Communication, she designed and led a project fostering democratic participation in the EU. Morana also trains teenagers in critical thinking about international justice and she trains human rights defenders in digital security.
CLYDE PETERSEN
Clyde Petersen is a Seattle-based artist, working in film, animation, music, installation and fabulous spectacle. He is a proud member of the transgender and queer communities in Seattle. Clyde is the director of Torrey Pines, an autobiographical stop-motion animated feature film, which premiered in October 2016 and toured the world with a live score. He travels the world with his punk band Your Heart Breaks and hosts the internet film series Boating with Clyde, in a small handmade boat in the Washington Park Arboretum. His work has been featured around the world in museums, galleries and DIY venues. Clyde is currently working on two new feature films and has a solo exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum through April 2019.
JUNE T. SANDERS
June T. Sanders is an artist, writer, educator, and curator from south central wa state. She lives there still. She is currently a full time assistant professor with the digital technology & culture program at Washington State University. Her work is about gender; dirt; expansions; home.
EPISODE 6—MIGRANT JUSTICE
CARROLL GARDENS ASSOCIATION
The Carroll Gardens Association (CGA) is an affordable housing and economic development grassroots organization that has been working in Southwest Brooklyn (Red Hook, Columbia Waterfront, and the surrounding area) since 1971. CGA organizes with tenants and domestic workers to advocate for permanent affordable housing, cooperative economics, and domestic worker rights. We center leadership development, political education, and mutual aid in our organizing and program design that is rooted in the belief that residents and workers are the experts in the problems that face them.
SET HERNANDEZ RONGKILYO
Set Hernandez Rongkilyo is an undocumented immigrant filmmaker and community organizer whose roots come from Bicol, Philippines. They are the fruit of their parents’ sacrifices, their siblings’ resilience, and their community’s nurturing. Set envisions a filmmaking landscape that centers equity and abundance, where all artists have the resources to thrive using the unique skill sets they embody. Set’s short films have been televised, featured, and awarded in film festivals across the U.S. As part of the inaugural cohort of the Disruptors Fellowship by Joey Solloway’s 5050by2020 and the Center for Cultural Power, Set is developing a half-hour, TV comedy pilot about the undocumented experience. Set also directed/produced the short documentary Cover/age (2019) about healthcare expansion for undocumented adults. They served as Impact Producer for projects such as In Plain Sight and the award-winning Call Her Ganda (Tribeca, 2018). Since 2010, Set has been organizing around migrant justice issues from education equity to deportation defense. Along with Rahi Hasan, they are the co-founder of the Undocumented Filmmakers Collective, which advances equity for undocumented immigrants in the film industry. They are the recipient of numerous fellowships including the Firelight Impact Producer Lab and Soros Justice Fellowship. They have spoken about people-centered filmmaking on panels across the country including the Film Independent Forum and the Sundance Film Festival.
RODRIGO REYES
Mexican director Rodrigo Reyes has won awards for his films around the world, screening at festivals such as Morelia International Film Festival, BFI London, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, with great reviews in spaces like Variety and the New York times. His work has received the support of The Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), Sundance and Tribeca Institutes, and many others. He has screened his films on America ReFramed and Netflix, and is a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim and Creative Capital Awards. In 2020, his latest film entitled 499, won Best Cinematography at Tribeca Film Festival, as well as the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs, as well as the Special Jury Prize at EBS International Documentary Film Festival, and the Golden Frog for Best Docudrama at Energa Camerimage.
