CALI M. BANKS

WORK IN PROGRESS

Merging ancestral, indigenous regalia and motifs with contemporary silhouettes, this show, The Words In Your Throat Have Grown Teeth, touches on intergenerational transmission of knowledge and the adaptability of tradition through alternative photographic processes. This exhibition culminates at the intersection of photography and craft. I have utilized materials such as animal hide, horsehair, leather, and ribbon that put photography back in touch with the sense of touch itself, through irregular surfaces, textiles, and quotidian objects. The subjects I am using to investigate ideas of kinship and ephemerality are hair, teeth, tattoos, and skin. Through this work, I am exploring identity, methods of healing, aging, and traditional indigenous practices, such as hand-beadwork and garment construction. The work in this exhibition also has a sense of impermanence and extraction, with a heavy use of water to capture movement as a medium, but also to represent that water holds memory - just like our teeth, hair, and skin.

The title stems from oral history being a prominent aspect of how indigenous culture thrives. There is a beauty in ancestral histories being told alongside current-day experiences - which are then repeated over time to become their own histories. It is well known within indigenous communities that it is sometimes difficult for a Native person to get to the point of the story, which relates to the repetition and elongated narratives that encompass the work. We don’t need to understand everything about the story that has been told to us, so we can then create new stories to make new histories to pass down from generation to generation. The use of fragmented narratives evokes a feeling of uncertainty and disorientation, until the viewer can step back and see vivid vignettes of life through historical photographic processes - almost in a dreamlike state.

Slack-Jawed floats between a zine and an artist book. The book explores intergenerational stories & lived experiences through an auto-ethnographic lens. Lumens were made at Light Work, watergrams were made at Penumbra Foundation, polaroid images were taken in South Brooklyn through Rochester, and also some select writing from my longer essay written in a workshop held by Chyana Marie Sage.

- Self-published, 62 pages cover to cover

- Limited run of 30 copies, $30

- Includes one 4.5 x 6" print on Hahnemuhle Matte Fibre

Purchase a copy here.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Through archival material, such as familial immigration documentation and my own tribal enrollment forms, polaroid emulsion lifts, and alternative darkroom processes such as watergrams, I am questioning what it means to be "an American", and the liminal existence of multicultural individuals. The materials I use create a barrier between myself and touch. Through layers of sensitivity, lived experiences can be imagined as an imprint of the skin. But, through contrasts of soft and sharp elements in the work, there is also a reclamation of identity - and how my culture is still strong and breathing. The materiality of watergrams are also important to the context of the work, with regard to making beauty out of death, as gelatin is used in the process of creating silver gelatin paper.

This work has a sense of impermanence and extraction. I use beadwork to encourage slow looking through fragmentation, to keep the eye moving around the frame. There is also heavy use of water in my work, from creating the emulsion lifts, to capturing their movement as a medium, to representing the migration of my family across waters, both in America and beyond. I explore the surface of rocks as a transfer material - another nod to my grandfather who would call these shiny, light-colored rocks "lucky stones", but also as a way to see history frozen in time, like a fossil.

Combining super 8mm and 16mm tactile filmmaking processes, Catch Us on the Way Down weaves North Carolina's hostile legislature towards abortion with personal anecdotes, and anecdotes from women of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. This film incorporates knowledge from traditional medicinal practices with present-day access to reproductive healthcare, as a hope of a return and honoration of matrilineality in tribes.

Made as a part of the Abortion Clinic Film Collective.

Wishing (You) Well blends time and space with regard to long-distance intimacy and lost connections over the years. The film is a personal, experimental documentary film that explores the significance of close relationships by analyzing my connections with childhood friends in Syracuse, along with family members and romantic partners. This short film also touches on feminine intimacy and how that has been historically used against us, and more specifically, how women of colors' relationships are seemingly untold- besides being seen as threatening.

I began documenting my hometown of Syracuse in November 2022. When I traveled back to places of importance during my "coming of age" years, I realized many places of both solace and nostalgia have been demolished or abandoned. I started to rework this experimental, documentary project with ideas of "teardown towns" and blind tradition. Returning as an adult - confronted with the same scene for decades - also allowed me to reexamine myself, interconnectedness with the people around me, and the sense of home. Using Syracuse as my muse, a familiar landscape demonstrates a feeling of nostalgia and longing. In this work, I reveal moments of individuality and selfhood that indicate the contradictions of connection and belonging within systems that simultaneously contain and embody us. I utilize self-portraiture, still-lives, and architecture that is specific to Syracuse, and symbolism depicting bodies, ritual, and sensuality, which in turn uses nonverbal communication as a way to emphasize tradition. This project also explores the complexities of layers of existence through materialistic remnants and the essence of non-tangibility.

“Close Enough To Touch” is an exhibition of sixteen polaroid emulsion transfers that are hand beaded with traditional indigenous technique. Each image has been captured in Brooklyn, and combines both self-portraiture, still-lives, architecture that is specific to this borough, and symbolism depicting bodies, ritual, and sensuality. Red, black, and white are consistent colors throughout the work as a representation of the Lenape Tribe. Black is indicative of power, strength, aggression, and victory. Red represents happiness and beauty, but also violence and bloodshed. White is indicative of sharing and light. Gold is used to represent value and validation. Each beaded image contains one blue bead, historically known as a “spirit bead” in indigenous beadwork. This is not only a signature in every piece, but also an act of recognition to her maternal grandfather and mother.

These images were a part of a solo exhibition at Brooklyn Film Camera, December 2022 - January 2023.

Color photograms on 35mm moving image film.

Captured on Kodak Vision 3 Color Negative Vision 3 16mm Film with a Bolex Rex-5 camera, edited with Ciro Guillotine Splicer on a vertical editing system by Cali M. Banks at MONO NO AWARE, Brooklyn NY 2022 *ECN-II Linear developing & timed work print by ColorLab, MD.

Archival prints from Kodak single use camera, thread detail.

Void is a series of repurposed family photographs. Resembling the hidden mother portraits of the 1800s, Banks sews into these photographs to erase the parental figure that was once in the image. Void depicts divorce, loss, and pain in the artist.

Through photography and non-traditional processes, such as heat and acid, this body of work brings to light psychological stresses that have turned into physical pain in women’s bodies. The titles for each of the works were transcribed from short interviews I had with each participant.

A Collective Music Film curated by Andi Avery and Kate E. Hinshaw

Edited by Andi Avery

An Analog Cookbook Project

Hold My Hand is a collective music video for LA-based band the Death Valley Girls that uses hand-painted 16mm film as its base. Kate & Andi mailed 100 DIY filmmaking kits to folx around North America along with a section of lyrics to the new Death Valley Girls song Hold My Hand. They edited all the footage together, and the result was the following video which premiered via Rolling Stone on August, 19, 2020.

PRESS

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