How do we read an image? The screening program “CINEMA IS OF THE MIND ANYWAY” brings together artists Jordan Lord and Tiffany Sia to share recent films that intersect with broader ideas of media literacy, disinformation, and how we account for images that have been lost or occluded from national memory. Followed by a discussion with the artists.
Program
An Image on Air by Tiffany Sia
An Image on Air is a description, shown on a surtitle board (typically used for translation during live performances), of scenes in which public figures on live broadcast reflect on the then-novel experience of being “on air.” 2024, US, digital, 2 min.
An All-Around Feel Good by Jordan Lord
This essay film asks what it means to be an audience in the wake of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which claims but often fails to prohibit discrimination against disabled workers and audiences in the United States. Tangling common sense representations of disability, labor, and national identity, the film questions the purported goodness of putting disabled people to work in underpaid contexts ranging from captioning and transcribing to fabricating textiles for the US military. Produced with Abby Sun. 2024, US, DCP, 25 min.
A Child Already Knows by Tiffany Sia
The short film A Child Already Knows describes a child’s retelling of an escape from Shanghai disguised as a sojourn through the south. Half-remembered scenes of a historical cusp are recalled alongside a montage of appropriated early Mao-era children’s animations of the same period. The child becomes aware of the world of adult secrets. Train sounds whir. 2024, US, DCP, 33 min.
Accessibility
The films in this program have open captions.
The introduction and filmmaker discussion will have ASL interpretation.
For more information about accessibility, visit our Access page.
For questions on accessibility or to request additional accommodations, call 612-375-7564 or email access@walkerart.org.
Bios
Jordan Lord is a filmmaker, writer, and artist whose work addresses the relationships between historical and emotional debts, framing and support, access and documentary. Their films have been shown at festivals and venues including MoMA Doc Fortnight, New York Film Festival, Walker Art Center, Union Docs (Brooklyn), and Dokufest (Kosovo). Their film Shared Resources (2021) won the John Marshall Award for Contemporary Ethnographic Media at the Camden International Film Festival and the Critics Jury Prize at the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. They have presented solo exhibitions at Piper Keys, Artists Space, and Squeaky Wheel. In 2021 they were profiled as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Film by Filmmaker Magazine, and their work has been featured in publications such as Screen Slate, Millennium Film Journal, and Hyperallergic.
Tiffany Sia is an artist, filmmaker, and writer. Her work blends nonfiction with poetics and theoretical inquiry, and her visual explorations confront questions about genre and representation of place and memory. Sia’s films have screened at TIFF Toronto International Film Festival, MoMA Doc Fortnight, New York Film Festival and elsewhere. The artist and filmmaker has previously had solo exhibitions at Artists Space, Felix Gaudlitz, and Maxwell Graham Gallery. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at Fondazione Prada; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Seoul Museum of Art; and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared in Film Quarterly, October, and elsewhere. Sia’s first collection of essays, On and Off-Screen Imaginaries, was published by Primary Information in 2024.
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