FREE FILM : NYC - red hook
Neighborhood: Red Hook
Partners: Pioneer Works and Red Hook Art Project
Prompt: One Square Mile
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WORTHLESSSTUDIOS is pleased to announce the fourth iteration of its FREE FILM project: FREE FILM : NYC, which will travel throughout New York City. The project follows FREE FILM : CANAL, FREE FILM : USA and FREE FILM : JUNE 2020, a series of initiatives that sought to catalog our communities, our country and our world over the past three years in radically different ways, while democratizing the documentation of our ever-shifting realities. FREE FILM : NYC kicks off this summer and turns towards WORTHLESSSTUDIOS’ home city of New York to uncover a new truth about the old topic of community.
FREE FILM : NYC follows the footsteps of the previous iterations as a meditation on community and local culture. The Airstream-darkroom will take up residency in a given neighborhood and distribute free rolls of film to the general public, and WORTHLESSSTUDIOS will partner with local community organizations and hold youth workshops where students will learn how to use a film camera, focus a lens and process and print film using professional equipment provided by FREE FILM. Over the course of the next year and a half, the project will make its way around New York to document each borough, neighborhood by neighborhood.
The first neighborhood is Red Hook, where WORTHLESSSTUDIOS has partnered with local arts nonprofit Pioneer Works to host the Airstream-darkroom, distribute film and teach photography classes to locals. Participating photographers of all ages will shoot within the boundaries of one neighborhood at a time, responding to the prompt “ONE SQUARE MILE.” Pioneer Works’ Artist-in-Residence will teach a series of workshops for 5 Red Hook Arts Project students and to interested Red Hook locals. Upon completion of the project across NYC neighborhoods, WORTHLESSSTUDIOS will produce a FREE FILM : NYC book.
“I’m beyond excited to reactivate our Airstream with local NYC photographers. The New York photo community has been a major contributor to the FREE FILM project from the beginning and I can’t wait to see how we photograph ourselves and the communities we live in.”
Neil Hamamoto, Founder and Creative Director of WORTHLESSSTUDIOS
PARTICIPANT PHOTOS
ABOUT RACHEL STERN
Rachel Stern is a photographer whose work considers the intersection of beauty and power. Her photo-based installations turn to the tableaux and the proscenium creating dialogue between the histories and uses of kitsch and leftist aesthetics. Using materials culled from strip malls and thrift stores she creates images which ask art and visual culture to enter into a discourse of accessibility and, in the spirit of ‘bread and roses’, demand immediate access to beauty. Her work images a world that might be, built out of the world that is. It is a kitsch paradise, a queer-washed history, and an attempt at hope. She received her BFA in Photography and the History of Art and Visual Culture in 2011 from the Rhode Island School of Design, attended Skowhegan in 2014, and graduated from Columbia University in 2016 with an MFA in Visual Arts. She has exhibited her work at The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Baxter St., Brandies University Kniznick Gallery, Ortega Y Gasset Project, Invisible-Exports, and Asya Geisberg Gallery among others. Her work has been featured in BOMB, The Boston Globe, The New York Times, Vice, Hyperallergic, and Matte Magazine.
how it works
Step 1: When a new neighborhood is launched, photographers come pick up a roll and celebrate the kick off with WORTHLESSSTUDIOS wherever the Airstream darkroom is parked. Photographers fill out a sign-up form to join and film is given out on a first come, first served basis.
Step 2: Participating photographers have a month to shoot their roll of film on the prompt of “ONE SQUARE MILE” within the boundaries of the current neighborhood. Participants are asked to interpret the theme however they see fit.
Step 3: Once they have shot their film, participants return their roll of film (with their name written on it) by the deadline and fill out the return form to ensure their film is processed. There will be a drop location that can receive film at all times.
Step 4: WORTHLESSSTUDIOS will process all film and scans will be emailed FOR FREE to photographers, whether or not they choose to have their negatives returned. WORTHLESSSTUDIOS develops film and sends scans on a rolling basis so the sooner you return the sooner you get your scans.
Step 5: The images could be published into a hardcover book! FREE FILM : NYC will travel to multiple neighborhoods over the next 18 months distributing film on the same prompt phrase. Once all the neighborhoods are complete a selection of images from each neighborhood will be put together and published as a book like we’ve done for the last three iterations of the project.
Find out more about FREE FILM public events, workshops, and upcoming iterations by subscribing to the WORTHLESSSTUDIOS newsletter below.