In conjunction with the film series Cauleen Smith—In Space, In Time, BAMPFA is delighted to present Cauleen Smith’s 2016 film Lessons in Semaphore as part of our ongoing occasional On the Outdoor Screen series. Filmed with Smith’s beloved but broken Vietnam War–era Bell+Howell wind-up 16mm camera in a verdant vacant lot on Chicago’s South Side, choreographer Taisha Paggett, performs signals with artist-made flags. Emerging onto the sidewalk, she engages in a gestural dialogue with a local boy, Maylk Singleton. Reflecting on the work, Smith noted: “I never convinced my fellow residents that the empty lots offered a wild prairie beauty. Fair enough. Because these empty lots also remind us of redlining and anti-black economic operations on fleek in Chicago and all over the country. But this was a small attempt at looking at the way the violence of American racism might, for a moment, be undermined and resisted.”
Photographed by Smith. With Taisha Paggett, Maylk Singleton. (5 mins, Silent, Color, Digital, From the artist)