Perspectives: Dr. Monique Kerman and the Works of Renée Green

Dr. Monique Kerman is Professor of Art History at Western Washington University and the author of Contemporary British Artists of African Descent and the Unburdening of a Generation, published in 2017. Her area of expertise is the art and visual culture of Africa and its diaspora, with a focus in her courses on enriching students’ knowledge and appreciation of not only African art and culture, but also of the ways in which slavery and colonialism have troubled that knowledge and appreciation. Her next book explores the work of contemporary French artists of African descent. Dr. Kerman's talk will both contextualize and expand on Renée Green's work Endless Dreams and Water Between (2009) as part of the exhibition In Dreams and Autumn/Endless Dreams.

About Endless Dreams and Water Between (2009) 

Digital Film Tryptic

The epicenter of this film installation resides in Endless Dreams and Water Between, a feature film where four fictitious characters sustain an exchange through written letters in which their “planetary thought” is weaved with the physical locations they inhabit, visual and aural characters in themselves: the island of Manhattan, the island of Majorca, in Spain, and the islands and peninsula that form the San Francisco Bay Area. The characters’ reflections and dreams enact what could be described as “an archipelagic mind,” linking worlds, time, and space. The film’s gentle stream of sounds, images, and thoughts is counterpointed by two other films, both of them silent: Stills and Excess; the former a film of related still images taken from the different international shooting locations, interrupted by a Henri Bergson quote; the latter, an homage and further rumination on avant-garde film aspirations. In this recess space, the perceiver’s attention splits, allowing water-thought forms of world-perception to emerge.