Bias and Working with Testimony

Since returning from Ireland I have been struggling with constructing my outline. I write daily, brainstorm, edit and compile data and yet my conclusions elude me. The desire to confine such complex issues within analysis is also not really fulfilling at this stage.

I have to ask the question of whether as a researcher and artist,  I can present an argument and conclusion to such complex issues? While I have the ability to do this, for a variety of reasons I resist presenting biased date.

At this stage it becomes important to ask..

What is this project at it's root?

A collection and a glimpse, born form the desire to show positive change.

What is hard is that what I have found is dark, complex and truly unresolved. I hoped to show the positive changes that can happen when women unite and now all I can see is the living evidence of sexism. This is just the filter with which I am viewing the data at the moment and that is what I need to shift.  To resolve the burn out I am currently feeling, I am going to edit some of the more joyful moments of my footage to music and see where that takes me and alternate that approach with writing the structure down,

Possibly the greatest lesson gained form this pursuit is finding that I am a researcher and an artist and that working with others lives in documentary form is incredibly challenging.

There are changes that have happened that are positive and by focusing more on these I hope to show that progress has occurred. That progress is in evolution.  Questioning the progress I see is important  and staying open to the truth is vital also.

Compiling my resources and interviewing people was my favorite part so far and this stage of working is work, a lot of hard work. I want to do these women's lives justice and that might be my current  problem. I am not the one who gets to save anyone else and honestly these women don't need saving and neither do future generations, sometime during the last week I forgot that I am only the one asking questions!

Letting people speak for themselves in this film  is really important and what I want to do is create an environment that is open and contemplative.

Handing over and trusting the process is once again what I need to return to.

Discovery is complicated, that is the thought I'll leave you with.. and this weekend I'll present some of my findings.

Eireann Aris

Cork City

County Clare

This week I will be returning to Ireland, I feel really blessed to be able to go back so soon.
The main focus of my trip, with regards to the research project, will be to travel to geographic sites suggested by my interviewees. My participants each selected a site that represented freedom to them and one that represents repression. using a medium format mamiya 645j, I will photograph these sites. When I return I'll begin the process of transforming these images into large prints that I will then weave together into an installation piece for one of the walls of the gallery.

I would also like to announce that the opening for my show, "Women in a Landscape of Change" will be on Wednesday March 30th in the Worth Ryder Gallery at UC Berkeley.

I will send updates from Ireland and my rough edit form the Magdalen Laundry section of the film will be posted shortly.

Happy Holidays,
Louisa

Magdalen Laundries

Today has been spent looking at footage of the Good Shepherd Convent, with the rain belting down on my skylight it's not hard to imagine being there now. After filming the place in September, I sat in my car for twenty minutes waiting for the waves of nausea to pass. Photographing the site had a profound affect and left me more committed to seeing these places turned into museums, so no one can have the luxury of forgetting what was done to so many women.

I am slowly and laboriously compiling the section of my film that will discuss the laundries. This involves listening to my interviews, cutting the video and looking closer at the images I took in September. It's incredible to me how much emotion the footage conveys, perhaps it's only because I was there and remember how disturbing the very air was around that massive institution. 

As I look closely at these pans and tilts I notice each time the image is unsteady and I know my grasp on the camera faltered. I recall how it was hard to breathe in that place never mind hold the camera. I was only a visitor there for an hour. How was it to fill your 24 hours there? years, a lifetime? For the estimated 30,000 women who were incarcerated in the laundries that was a reality we will never understand.

The following sites are excellent resources on the Magdalen Laundries in Ireland. I encourage anyone to visit them.

http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/index.htm

http://www.netreach.net/~steed/magdalen.html
 
There is new pressure from the EU for the nuns to release the census information. To sign an online petition please follow this link.

http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/index.htm

I will post a clip about the laundries within the week. Thank you for reading and as always your comments and feedback are appreciated.

Rough Cut

Intro
http://vimeo.com/16381696

Gay Rights
http://vimeo.com/16417967

I'd love your comments and thoughts,

Louisa

Haas Presentation

This Friday I will be presenting my progress report to the other scholars, Leah and my mentor Katherine Sherwood. I will stand in front of my cohort for twenty minutes and attempt to compress five months of research into ten slides and a dozen concise points.

I started having nightmares last week. At least fear is a good motivating force,  I stuck my head down and have been pretty much hibernating since. Regardless of the fact that it is Halloween, the weekend has been spent editing an introduction to my film and a few excerpts. It's slightly odd and disorienting that forty hours of work breaks down to less than five minutes of video, still, each time I watch the time line I feel giddy and so happy to see my vision coming alive.

As the minutes fade to hours  and I focus on a 17 inch monitor  and not the Giants game I have to remind myself to recite my fathers favorite mantra; "There can be no art without discipline, and there can be no discipline without sacrifice".
On that note I'm back to the grind, Go Giants and Happy Halloween.

In My Editing Cave

The last week has been spent compressing all of my footage from Ireland. What would normally be a tedious, repetitive and timely endeavor was instead infused with a lot of laughter and reminiscing. Thanks go entirely to Raul Varela, my DP for transforming the process by sharing the burden of compressing and file renaming and by lightening the load by making me laugh.

Truly I am so happy with the beautiful imagery and scenes we captured and again I was touched by the raw beauty of these women's stories. A grand 28 of them! My real duty will be to do the stories and history justice. Being a young filmmaker, in both experience and less so in age, that will be where I will need to remind myself at every turn to ask for guidance and to stay open to letting grace into the process. I feel fortunate that the lessons I've learned with painting and writing can be applied to editing. These being to
1. Trust the process
2. To have faith in the vision of what I am creating
3. To do a little every day
4. Be easy on myself and not too critical of the work
Lastly I think it's really important to enjoy the process to the best of ones ability, and to remind oneself of the original intention.

To keep the process of blogging alive and vibrant for me and also for anyone who might read this,  I will start sharing my thoughts and images on the topic or section of the documentary that I am currently editing.
These posts will come in weekly and will feature links to other sites that talk about the subject I'm exploring.

Let me know your thoughts!

Brid - Craughwell halting site