Date/Time
Date(s) - May 14, 2020 - July 1, 2020
All Day


I Am Yup’ik
Daniele Anastasion & Nathan Golon, 2015, USA, 16 minutes
A 16-year-old Alaskan Yup’ik teenager leaves his tiny village and travels across hundreds of miles of frozen tundra to compete in a basketball tournament and bring pride to his village. www.globalonenessproject.org/library/films/i-am-yupik

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Filmmakers:

Daniele Anastasion directed the documentary The Redemption of General Butt Naked, about a former Liberian warlord seeking forgiveness from victims. It premiered at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and received the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Documentary; it was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award. Anastasion wrote and produced Oprah Winfrey’s Belief series, exploring spirituality and humankind’s search for meaning. Nathan Golon is a cinematographer, director, and co-founder of GoodFight Media in Washington, DC. He grew up in Maine, studied at Boston University, and has filmed in nearly 40 countries. Golon has worked as a cinematographer for documentaries premiering at the Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals. He has filmed commercials and series for National Geographic, PBS, ESPN, Discovery, NFL.

Darío Escobar (Guatemala City, 1971 – )
Untitled, 2013
Mixografia print on handmade paper
Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, CSU, gift of Mixografia, 2017.15

Through his ma­nipulation of common objects of sporting equipment, Darío Escobar examines the cultures surrounding them. In his Untitled (2013) print, the artists considers the acculturation occurring as basketball displaces some of soccer/fútbol’s popularity in his native Guatemala. The print’s production by Mixografia, a remarkably innovative printmaking workshop founded in Mexico City and now based in Los Angeles, adds further elements to a consideration of transnational issues of cultural and economic exchange. This work is included in “Highlights from the Americas Collection: 31 Americans,” on view at the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art until December 19, 2020.

— Lynn Boland, Director and Chief Curator, Gregory Allicar Museum of Art

 

 

 

www.darioescobar.com

 

More resources:

“Certain Uncertainty: Interview with Artist Darío Escobar” – Artland Magazine
Uncertainty Principle features several sculptures made from objects used commonly for leisure activities such as chessboards and basketball hoops.
https://magazine.artland.com/certain-uncertainty-interview-artist-dario-escobar/

A Singular Plurality — José Luis Falconi | Harvard University Press
The provocative works of Guatemalan sculptor Darío Escobar challenge us to reconsider our relation to the myriad of mass-produced objects that encroach on our daily experience.
https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780985739508

“Guatemalan athletes are dribbling and not only with their feet” – New York Times
Basketball in Guatemala is further complicated and enriched by its connection to the native Mayan sport of el juego de pelota (ballgame).
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/sports/basketball/guatemalan-athletes-are-dribbling-and-not-only-with-their-feet.html

Conversation Starters:

ACT Human Rights Film Festival and Gregory Allicar Museum of Art pair film and art to explore each with new lenses. This edition’s theme revolves around complex questions in sports culture and acculturation. There are not easy or decisive answers offered by either work. Here are some discussion questions to consider.

    1. What roll does basketball play for the people in Toksook Bay? Personally? Communally? How is sports culture manifested in this space?
    2. Sports are often called the greatest unifier across geography and culture. Basketball both fulfills and replaces various customs, traditions, and community practices in Toksook Bay and Guatemala. What is beneficial and what is problematic with this
Dr. Scott Diffrient
Professor of Film and Media Studies in the Department of Communication Studies, Scott Diffrient began planning the ACT Human Rights Film Festival after receiving the 2014-2016 William E. Morgan Endowed Chair of Liberal Arts.		 Dr. Lynn Boland
Director and chief curator of the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art since 2017, Lynn Boland brings more than 20 years of experience in academic museums, with a museological focus on access and an art historical focus on the 20th and 21st centuries.

Part of ACT Year-Round, this program is presented in partnership with the ACT. Human Rights Film Festival.