Cities Martha Rosler Screening

As part of our ongoing Cities discussion, CCA screens three films focusing on urban space by American artist and activist Martha Rosler: How Do We Know What Home Looks Like?, Secrets From the Street: No Disclosure and Seattle: Hidden Histories. Introduced by CCA Curator Ainslie Roddick.

How Do We Know What Home Looks Like
1993, 31:18 min
Shot in a Le Corbusier housing project, Firminy-Vert, in south central France, this tape traces its history through an exploration of the way in which residents live in and with it as an architectural entity. Called by its residents Le Corbu after its renowned architect, the complex was built after his death. The wing in which the tape was primarily shot had been closed for over ten years, thus enshrining the decor of the late 1960s when the building was opened. The mayor of the town, who had facilitated its development, subsequently tried to have the complex destroyed. The tenant association president describes the struggle — only half successful — to save the building. The tape shows the closed wing, the signs and detritus of lives long past, followed by interviews. The opening sequence of views and snapshots is silent. Here is the space for an unspoken text about architecture and the warring interpretations of Le Corbusier's idea of a human, humane, humanizing space.

Secrets From the Street: No Disclosure
1980, 12:27 min
Secrets From the Street examines the intersection of cultures and classes as exemplified by the street life of San Francisco's Mission District. This videotape, produced for an exhibition held jointly at San Francisco's City Hall and its Museum of Modern Art, argues — against the show's theme and title, Public Disclosure: Secrets from the Street — that accounts of cultural life that omit the question of social power are mythical: The real "secret" is the obscured relation of economic and political domination exercised by one's own culture over the observed subculture. Or, as Rosler states in the tape's voiceover, "The secret is that to know the meaning of a culture you must know the limits of meaning of your own."

Seattle: Hidden Histories
1991-95, 12:12 min
Rosler writes, "The city of Seattle is not much more than 125 years old. It was named after a prominent chief of the Duwamish tribe, which was dispossessed along with other local tribes in the settlement of the town. In 1991 I conducted video interviews with some native American residents of Seattle, on questions of history and heritage."

Supported by Film Hub Scotland, part of the BFI’s Film Audience Network.