Sit Beside Me: Between Other and Author
Interpersonal Documentaries from the UnionDocs Collaborative Studio

Lipani Gallery
Exhibition Dates: June 8 – October 2, 2017
Opening Event: Thursday, June 15th / 7PM
Curator: UnionDocs

This Summer, Fordham University partners up with Brooklyn-Based documentary center UnionDocs to present Sit Beside Me: Between Other and Author. UnionDocs (UnDo) presents six short documentaries culled from the archive, exploring the inviting relationship between the filmmaker and the subject. The films were produced within the Collaborative Studio, UnDo’s annual fellowship program throwing international artists, journalists, and new media makers together to explore the outer bounds of documentary art.

Nearly a decade going, the Collaborative Studio has produced over 50 short documentaries, centered around a theme presented for exploration by UnionDocs. In search of a new thread, we’ve discovered Sit Beside Me? Six unknowingly interwoven works, born in different times, silently broaching the same question: what is the unspoken relationship between the documentarian and people who open their lives to the world?

Together for the first time within the Lipani gallery, the series trounces across a garden of cinematic approaches and themes. From a dotingly vibrant animation spun to a blind beatnik’s Homeric enthusiasm, to a lens that glances NYC’s masses with the searching eye of a lost lover, to the respectful distance in re-living a tenant’s toughest battle. Within this cornucopia of aesthetic approaches, we uncover ways to commune and embrace with life, projected and personal.

Including works from directors Tina Antolini, Mariangela Ciccarello, Constanza Mirré, Marina Lameiro, Livia Vonaesch, Shawn Wen, and Tracie Williams