Vever (for Barbara)

2019
Country: Guatemala, USA
Duration: 12 mins
Colour,
Sound: Stereo
Ratio: 4:3
Available Format/s: HD Digital file / DCP
Original Format: 16mm Film
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A vivid colour image of a street scene in Guatemala shot on analogue film. A woman in a red and pink patterned clothing is holding a large basket of pink, red, and yellow flowers on her head and has her other arm around the shoulder of a young child. In the background an older woman is wearing a green and white check shawl and is looking across the road. The building walls are painted blue. A handdrawn symbol in white is overlaid the centre of the photographic image. This is a vever, a symbolic drawing used in Haitian Voodoo to invoke a Loa, or god.
Vever (for Barbara), Deborah Stratman, 2019.

A cross generational binding of three filmmakers seeking alternative possibilities to power structures they’re inherently part of.

The film grew out of abandoned film projects of Maya Deren and Barbara Hammer. Shot at the furthest point of a motorcycle trip Hammer took to Guatemala in 1975, and passed through with Deren’s reflections of failure, encounter and initiation in 1950s Haiti.

A vever is a symbolic drawing used in Haitian Voodoo to invoke a Loa, or god.

Calling something ‘political’ and thinking of it as separate is just an excuse for not thinking about it at all.
Vicki Aspinall, The Raincoats

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