Coming to PBS’s America ReFramed tonight, Tuesday, April 24:
THROUGH THE REPELLENT FENCE
Director:
Sam Wainwright Douglas
Premiere:
Documentary Fortnight 2017
Select Festivals:
SXSW, Full Frame, Sarasota, Montclair
About:
A collective of Native American artists install a work of land art on both sides of the US/Mexico border.
Douglas’ film charts the creative process of the artist collective, Postcommodity, and the eventual installation of their project, known as “Repellent Fence.” The piece employs two dozen linked, inflated spheres top temporarily conceptually “suture” the border over which they hover, serving as a political statement about present-day barriers, while also speaking to erased indigenous history about the cultures who once occupied the land before borders were drawn. Somewhat awkwardly woven within Postcommodity’s story is a small survey of other land art examples, which feels like it’s just padding out the proceedings.
what (not) to doc 