Focus: Barbara Hammer

Hammer has become the progenitor of lesbian filmmaking, making more than a hundred films throughout five decades. Through her work, she sought to claim space for “invisible bodies and invisible histories” to be seen and recorded. At a time when lesbian lives were largely absent from the cultural narrative, Hammer put their bodies, sexuality, desire and community on screen.

Coming to prominence in the 1970s, Hammer developed a style of filmmaking as open and exploratory as the experiences she wanted to capture. Her films are playful, provocative, sensual, personal and political. She approached film as a language, experimenting with image, movement, sound and found footage, and used it to create images that expressed lived experience in ways that conventional documentary films could not. As Hammer put it, “If we’re experimenting with our lives and the way we’re going to live, our film and our art should also be experimental.’’ 

The program features nine films, including fascinating deep cuts from Hammer’s filmography: Audience (1982), a short yet complex portrait of lesbian communities across borders, and Sanctus (1990), a look inside the fragile interior of the body through X-ray imagery. Alongside these are classics such as No No Nooky T.V. (1987), a witty video-art short poking fun at romance and sexuality in the post-industrial world, and Maya Deren’s Sink (2011), an homage to the legendary avant-garde artist Deren’s mystique and lasting influence.