An Evening of Film Screenings: Leah Beeferman, Ben Kujawski, Justin Clifford Rhody, and Abigail Smith
September 3, 2022
8:30pm, $5-$10 (NOTAFLOF)

This Saturday, join us for a film program with a screening of The Elements (2019-20) by Leah Beeferman (Providence, RI), and a full program of short films by the co-operators of No Name Cinema (Santa Fe, NM): Ben Kujawski, Justin Clifford Rhody, and Abigail Smith. 

The Elements was filmed during Beeferman’s third visit to Kilpisjärvi, northern Finland, in June 2019, at a time of year when the sun doesn’t set. The video, with voiceover text written and recorded by Beeferman, explores what it means to observe and measure a landscape. What is an observation, and what does it mean to measure? The Elements builds an experience of Kilpisjärvi from several juxtapositions: layered images, offering multiple views of the landscape at once; contrasting poetic language with numerical/scientific description; and considering Kilpisjärvi’s wind and weather alongside data about wind and weather in outer space. How do we express what we measure, in images or in words? What is an image, when all experiences – regardless of their source – end up as pictures in our minds? This screening of Beeferman’s work serves as a prelude for her upcoming solo exhibition at CO-OPt, opening October 22, 2022.

Ben Kujawski, Justin Clifford Rhody, and Abigail Smith run No Name Cinema in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a microcinema, gallery and community gathering space that exists as a no-profit, non-business, anti-capitalist operation. No Name Cinema focuses on showcasing international and local experimental, avant-garde and repertory films, videos and visual art. Kujawski, Rhody, and Smith will be presenting a full program of their respective short films. The formats and techniques of the films will run the gamut in wild eclecticism: works shot on Super 8, hand-sewn/painted and xeroxed 35mm, hand painted 8mm mail art collaborations, VHS found footage, abstract miniDV video pieces, and others. The artists will be in attendance for the screening this Saturday.

About the artists:

Leah Beeferman works with video, digital image-making, text, and sound. She explores what emptiness and density — concepts important in quantum physics, which studies the smallest of scales — mean in landscapes on Earth, at a planetary scale. She has had solo exhibitions at Rawson Projects, New York; Arcade on Stadium, Utah; and Sorbus, Helsinki. Recent two-person or group exhibitions include Helsinki Art Museum, Finland; Fiskars Village Biennial, Finland; Sirius Arts Centre, Ireland; SOLU, Helsinki; The Anderson, Richmond.

Beeferman has participated in many residencies, including LMCC Workspace, New York; The Arctic Circle, Svalbard; Tiputini Biodiversity Research Station, Ecuador; ArsBioarctica, Finland; Mustarinda, Finland; Digital Painting Atelier, OCAD, Toronto; and Sirius, Ireland. Her work has been discussed in publications including BOMB, Objektiv, Temporary Art Review, Art in Print, Taupe Magazine, and ArtPulse. In 2016 she published an artist book, Triple Point, with Lodret Vandret Copenhagen. She received an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (2010) and a BA from Brown University (2004) and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholar Grant to Finland (2016-17). Beeferman is now based in Providence, where she teaches at the Rhode Island School of Design. leahbeeferman.com

Justin Clifford Rhody is a photographer, filmmaker and sound artist currently based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His work has been exhibited and published in galleries and alleyways, both nationally and internationally, on cassettes and vinyl records, in print publications, film festivals, as well as online. He ran the Friends & Relatives record label 1999-2016 and has been organizing underground music & art events for over 20 years. Rhody is the founder/co-operator of No Name Cinema and currently runs the Physical media imprint and performs violin, film, harmonica & guitar in the K/S/R expanded cinema trio. justincliffordrhody.com

Abigail Smith is a collage artist, field recordist, experimental filmmaker, archivist and master librarian. Her work has been exhibited in the Bay Area, New Mexico, and in print - most recently in Baited Area magazine. Her field recordings have been released by Eh? Audio Repository, with a forthcoming release from the Physical media imprint. Smith is a co-operator of No Name Cinema in Santa Fe and performs flute, film & percussion in the K/S/R expanded cinema trio. abigailsmithcollage.com

Ben Kujawski is a filmmaker, writer and musician from Long Island, New York currently living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His films have premiered at festivals in Cologne Germany, Woodstock NY, and New Mexico. Kujawski is a co-operator of No Name Cinema in Santa Fe and performs organ, accordion, film & slide guitar in the K/S/R expanded cinema trio. benkujawski.com

In the gallery:

Wind Tide: Half Calendar
August 31 - October 16, 2022
Reception Sunday September 11, 4-7pm

CO-OPt Research + Projects presents a series-in-progress of mixed-media works on plywood by CO-OPt members Wind Tide (Andrew Weathers and Gretchen Korsmo).

“Half Calendar is the midway point in a yearlong project. Each month we leave a sheet of plywood in the backyard of Wind Tide. Throughout the month we collage, print, and otherwise modify the panel which is also acted on by the elements–sun, wind, (occasional) rain. With the exception of adhesive, all materials used are items already in our home and studio or found in the street, or, if we're real lucky, blown directly into the yard. Each panel is a record of the month's weather and the material detritus of our lives processed through an improvisatory activated entropy. We start each month with a full four-foot-by-eight-foot sheet of plywood, which is then framed and cut down to a size appropriate to our backyard storage shed. The Calendar is an attempt to further integrate daily creative activity outside of capitalist aspirations into our lives.”

The full calendar of works will be exhibited in early 2023 at Project Project in Omaha, Nebraska.

 About the artists:

Wind Tide is the sound, visual art, and architectural practices of Andrew Weathers and Gretchen Korsmo as well as the name of their home and studio space, a renovated commercial building in downtown Littlefield, Texas. Despite the interdisciplinary nature of Wind Tide's practice, the work has a conceptual grounding across media and engages with notions of place, space, and environment and is very often made from found or recycled materials. Wind Tide has released sound work on the Full Spectrum and Never Anything labels and has shown visual work at Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts (Lubbock, TX) and Lasso Gallery (Amarillo, TX) as well as expanded cinema at No Name Cinema (Santa Fe, NM).