IN CONVERSATION: ALILE SHARON LARKIN, CAULEEN SMITH AND DANA WASHINGTON WITH JHEANELLE BROWN

Alile Sharon Larkin is an acclaimed L.A. Rebellion filmmaker and multicultural artist-educator. Her films, Your Children Come Back To You (1979), A Different Image (1982), and The Kitchen (1975), have screened at community centers, libraries, film festivals, and exhibitions, universities and museums locally, nationally, and internationally. A partial list of the diverse venues Larkin’s films have been showcased includes the British Film Institute, BAMcinematek, MoMA, Cinema du Reel, Iconic Black Panther, The Black Cinema House, Black Portraitures III, Whitney Museum, Smithsonian Museum, Howard University’s James A. Porter Colloquium, KAOS Network, Mercado La Paloma, King Center, Malcolm X Center, William Grant Still Art Center, Filmex and London Black Film Festival.

As a public school teacher with LAUSD, Larkin made filmmaking a part of her elementary classroom curriculum for over twenty-five years. Larkin was awarded ten Video-in-the-Classroom awards (VICs) from KLCS-TV for teacher-produced videos that documented student learning in textile arts, storytelling, yoga, jazz, women’s history, Kwanzaa, and African-inspired dance. Larkin’s films for children include Dreadlocks and the Three Bears and Mz Medusa. Mz Medusa was a collaborative effort of students, teachers, administrators, parents, professional crew, and actors. Her documentary Miss Fluci Moses is a tribute to the local librarian, poet, and beloved aunt of Alonzo and Dale Davis (Brockman Gallery).

Larkin continues to create art and media that validates and celebrates global Black life through Dreadlocks and the Three Bears Productions. Current projects include a picture-book version of her award-winning children’s video, Dreadlocks and the Three Bears, Tie-Dye: A Children’s Music DVD, and The Kitchen: A Visual Companion to her first film. Larkin’s work is made possible by the collaborative efforts of a multigenerational group of filmmakers, artists, designers, educators, and performers who are dedicated to making art for a better world.

Cauleen Smith (born Riverside, California, 1967) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work reflects upon the everyday possibilities of the imagination. Operating in multiple materials and arenas, Smith roots her work firmly within the discourse of mid-twentieth-century experimental film. Drawing from structuralism, third world cinema, and science fiction, she makes things that deploy the tactics of these disciplines while offering a phenomenological experience for spectators and participants. Her films, objects, and installations have been featured in group exhibitions. Studio Museum of Harlem, Houston Contemporary Art Museum; Yerba Buena Center for Art, and the New Museum, New York, D21 Leipzig and Decad, Berlin. She has had solo shows for her films and installations at The Kitchen, MCA Chicago, Threewalls, Chicago. She shows her drawings and 2D work with Corbett vs. Dempsey. Smith is the recipient of several grants and awards including the Rockefeller Media Arts Award, Creative Capital Film /Video, Chicago 3Arts Grant, and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Chicago Expo Artadia Award, and Rauschenberg Residency. Smith was born in Riverside, California, and grew up in Sacramento. She earned a BA in Creative Arts from San Francisco State University and an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theater Film and Television. Smith currently serves as faculty at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in Valencia, CA.

Jheanelle Brown is a film curator and arts educator based in Los Angeles. Her curatorial practice is committed to honoring, expanding, and empowering Blackness in visual and filmic media. Her specific interests are oriented around experimental and non-fiction film and video, the relationship between musicality and cinema, political film and media, and West Indian film/video. She is currently co-curator for Black Radical Imagination, an associate programmer for Los Angeles Filmforum, and a curriculum developer for the Centennial High School film club. Jheanelle is co-curator, with Sarah Loyer, for Time Is Running Out of Time: Experimental Film and Video from the L.A. Rebellion and Today.

dana washington (b. 1985, Southern California) is an artist, writer, and director working in photography, film, video, and voice narration. She examines blackness and aesthetics, personal history, memory and fiction to explore race, identity, and futurity in visual culture.

washington has received a Bachelor of Arts in English from California State University, Long Beach, and is completing a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego.

Select film screenings and publications: Black Radical Imagination Showcase 2018, OUTFEST Fusion LGBT People of Color Film Festival, BlackStar Film Festival, Los Angeles Diversity Film Festival, San Diego Art Institute, and LA FilmForum.