Chloë Bass: This Is A Film (1.2)

Thursday, November 15, 2018 

This Is A Film (1.2). is a lecture performance exploring what it means to turn footage into language. Using clips of family home movies found in various online archives, Chloë Bass creates a descriptive piece for the audience to hear and imagine. Where is the film: in the language? in the images that come into each listener’s head? Is it shared between us? What do we see, and how does it make a story? 

This Is A Film (1.0) premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Version 1.1 was presented for an intimate audience at Amherst College at the invitation of Macon Reed. This is version 1.2. Each new edit reflects changes based on the specifics of the venue or organization presenting the work, as well as straying further from direct description of the original pieces of footage. 

This Is A Film (1.2). was developed with the support of The Laundromat Project’s Create Change Residency Program in partnership with Denniston Hill. Chloë Bass was also a 2017 artist-in-residence at Triangle Arts Association. Chloë is a multiform conceptual artist working in performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Her work uses daily life as a site of deep research to address scales of intimacy: where patterns hold and break as group sizes expand. She began her work with a focus on the individual (The Bureau of Self-Recognition, 2011 – 2013), has recently concluded a study of pairs (The Book of Everyday Instruction, 2015 – 2017), is currently investigating the immediate family (Obligation To Others Holds Me in My Place, 2018 - 2020), and will continue to scale up gradually until she’s working at the scale of the metropolis. You can learn more about her at chloebass.com. 

Chloë Bass is a multiform conceptual artist working in performance, situation, conversation, publication, and installation. Her work uses daily life as a site of deep research to address scales of intimacy: where patterns hold and break as group sizes expand. She began her work with a focus on the individual (The Bureau of Self-Recognition, 2011 – 2013), has recently concluded a study of pairs (The Book of Everyday Instruction, 2015 – 2017), is currently observing immediate families (Obligation To Others Holds Me In My Place, 2018 - 2020), and will continue to scale up gradually until she’s working at the scale of the metropolis. Chloë has held numerous fellowships and residencies; 2018’s include a residency at Denniston Hill, the Recess Analog Artist-in-Residence, and a BRIC Media Arts Fellowship. Her projects have appeared nationally and internationally, including recent exhibits at the Knockdown Center, the Kitchen, the Brooklyn Museum, CUE Art Foundation, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space, The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, the James Gallery, and elsewhere. Reviews, mentions of, and interviews about her work have appeared in Artforum, The New York Times, Hyperallergic, The Brooklyn Rail, BOMB, Temporary Art Review, and Artnews among others. Her forthcoming monograph will be published by The Operating System in Fall 2018; she also has a chapbook, #sky #nofilter, forthcoming from DoubleCross Press. Her short-form writing has been published on Hyperallergic, Arts. Black, and the Walker Reader. She is an Assistant Professor of Art at Queens College, CUNY, where she co-runs Social Practice Queens with Gregory Sholette.

About Denniston Hill 

Situated in the Southern Catskills on a 200-acre campus, Denniston Hill (DH) was established on the conviction that it is imperative for artists of all disciplines, backgrounds and career stages to have time and space for reflection and research. The organization was founded in 2004 by a group of primarily LGBTQ artists, architects, and writers of color. We are an artist-centered interdisciplinary arts organization that fosters an inclusive, practical discourse about the aesthetics, function, ethics and meaning of contemporary artistic practice. Our mission is guided by the principle that creative and critical voices are important in shaping a just, equitable society.

About The Laundromat Project

Founded in 2005, The Laundromat Project (The LP) advances artists and neighbors as change agents in their own communities. We envision a world in which artists and neighbors in communities of color work together to unleash the power of creativity to transform lives. We make sustained investments in growing a community of multiracial, multigenerational, and multidisciplinary artists and neighbors committed to societal change by supporting their artmaking, community building, and leadership development.

About Triangle Arts Association

Triangle is an artist-founded non-profit art institution in New York City, working locally and globally since 1982. Our programs emphasize research, dialogue and experimentation through residencies and public programs.

This is a Film (1.2). is part of Denniston Hill’s Exodus project.