Ruth Marianne Owens
" Visitation: A Cosmogram in Four Movements"
Synopsis
Visitation, A Cosmogram in Four Movements
single channel video, 18 min 26 sec
Ruth Owens
Visitation, A Cosmogram in Four Movements, 2022 lyrically presents the ambivalent positioning of our Black subjecthood in natural bodies of water, where we are enveloped by nurturing, as well as destructive associations. Lakes, sea-sides, and rivers are sites of delight for family play, personal calming, and spiritual connection in baptisms and quiet beachside contemplation. But the oceanic abduction and watery graves of the middle passage, and the explicit and implicit segregation of public beaches belie historic and ongoing violence against Black bodies. Visitation is a visual poem that examines these conflicting experiences by people of color in nature’s waterways.
Owens uses personal super 8 family films from the 1960’s, and home movies from Black archival sources, to elucidate the historic legacy of Black people’s complicated engagement with natural spaces. This home movie material gives an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of Black family life that has been invisible, carelessly lost, distorted, or erased. The amateurish cinematography and degradation of the footage lends credence to this authentic historical record. Visitation presents and preserves the films of Black people telling our own stories about our day-to-day life pursuits. These are stories that would otherwise go unrecognized or only be defined through the lens of the dominant culture.
Visitation is structured as a square, with a horizontal line dividing two portions of the footage. The upper half of the square presents archival footage featuring Owens’ family along with home movies from other Black archival sources. Simultaneously, the lower half of the square presents subaquatic scenes in slowed-down time of Owens dancing as an underwater spirit. Her rhythms of swimming in arrival, engaging in both graceful and tension filled movements, and then swimming in retreat, relate and respond to the archival footage shown simultaneously on the top half of the square. This coming and going is a visitation from the spirit world, hence the title.
The bisecting horizontal line of the film’s structure divides the everyday activities that occur above the water from the spiritual ones below. It is a metaphorical representation of a Kongo cosmogram whose horizontal axis separates the living and the spirit world, the living and the ancestors, and the living and God. The water’s surface is the porous threshold between living “above” and spiritual “below” allowing communication and visitation between the two realms. Owens structures her film on this African symbol of life’s interconnectedness to invoke water’s spirituality.
There are four “movements” in Visitation that describe the expressive dance of the underwater being. The movements of “approach,” “dance,” “conflict,” and “retreat,” relate emotionally to the archival footage shown above in tone. They also relate to the four positions of the sun in the Kongo cosmogram world view which espouses the circular interconnectedness of all life. Further, the original musical score, an improvisational choreography, ends each movement on an intentional “unfinished” note, thereby connecting it to the next cinematic movement and underlining the cosmogram’s emphasis on life’s continuity.
Granted, this film does not gloss over the violence we encounter in natural spaces, but it also answers in celebration of the delight found in familial and spiritual connectedness. The archival scenes include the 1964 St. Augustine wade-in protest against beach segregation and scenes of the historically segregated Lincoln Beach in New Orleans East. Joyful footage of children playing lakeside, and spiritually uplifting river baptism scenes counter the violence of exclusion and offers a forward-thinking imaginary. In a bittersweet visual presentation supported by an original soundtrack setting a spiritual, lamenting, and magical tone, Visitation, shows us where we have been as Black people, and what enlightening possibilities are open to us in the future.
Bio
Ruth Owens graduated in 2018 with an MFA from the University of New Orleans after leaving her medical practice of 25 years. She is represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and belongs to the artist collective, “The Front,” both in New Orleans. Owens’ work is concerned with contributing to and preserving the black archive, and she uses personal super-8 film references in her painting and video art. Artist residencies include the Joan Mitchell Center, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Vermont Studio Center, the Studios at MASS MoCA, and the International Studio and Curatorial Program in NY. Her work is in the permanent collections of the 21c Museums, Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill, Addison Gallery of American Art, Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, Fidelity Investments Corporate Collection, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. She participated in the New Orleans Film Festival and the Patois Film Festival in New Orleans.
Statement
This film concerns itself with the ambivalent positioning of the black body in the landscape, in bodies of water in particular. Black people’s association with water has been nurturing and supportive, as well as destructive and violent. Lakes, sea-sides, and other waterways can serve as sites of delight for family play and personal calming. They can also establish connections to the spiritual realm as in baptisms and quiet beachside contemplation. But starting with the middle passage, moving on to segregated beaches, to implicit exclusion of people of color from public access to beaches and lakes, there has been an extensive history of violence against the black body in the context of natural waterways. “Visitation: A Cosmogram in Four Movements” explores both the nurturing and destructive associations between people of color and the sea, and places a particular emphasis on the spiritual gains of being near a natural body of water.
To emphasize the historic nature of the black people’s complicated engagement with natural spaces, this film uses archival footage sourced from Owens’ own personal super 8 family films as well as home movies from black archival sources. The degradation of the footage highlights the fact that the scenes of children frolicking in the surf or black teenagers being driven from the sea side by police with batons are authentic historical records pointing to this problem. The archival footage is home movie material and gives an intimate, behind-the-scenes view of black family life that has been invisible, lost, distorted, or erased. Visitation presents and preserves the films of black people telling their own stories about their day-to-day life pursuits. These are stories that would otherwise go unrecognized or only defined through the lens of the dominant culture.
Visitation is structured as a film shown in a square aspect ratio with a horizontal line bisecting 2 portions of the footage. The film on the upper half of the square is largely archival footage featuring Owens’ family and home movies from black archival sources. The lower half of the square presents exclusively underwater scenes that show Owens performing as an underwater spirit, in which she swims toward the forefront, performs an underwater dancelike moves, and then swims away. Hence the name, Visitation. The bisecting horizontal line of the film’s structure divides the mundane activities that occur above the water from the spiritual ones below. It is a metaphorical representation of a Kongo cosmogram whose horizontal axis separates the living and the spirit world, man and God, and God and the dead. The surface of the water is the dividing line between living “above” and spiritual “below.” Owens makes reference to this African religious symbol in structuring her film to emphasize the spiritual connection brought about by bodies of water.
This is a film that does not gloss over the violence doled out to us in natural spaces, but it also celebrates the delight found in spiritual connectedness in those sites. In a bittersweet visual presentation supported by an original soundtrack setting a spiritual, lamenting, and magical tone, Visitation, shows us where we have been as a people, and what enlightening possibilities are open to us in the future.