The Black Aesthetic Season IV, Black Interiors: Sweat with Reception

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
in ,

Sweat is evidence of labor. The films included reflect the inner worlds of black working people, asking us to consider not only the material outcomes of their efforts but the moments of tension, pleasure, communion, and delight that give “black labor power” its depths. An excerpt from Right On/Be Free featuring the Alvin Ailey dance company’s Judith Jamison transitions to scenes of black workers in protest in the documentary Finally Got the News, connecting radical black movement and movements, while the children in the animated Noel’s Lemonade Stand, the educational short The Blue Dashiki, and the experimental documentary Felicia consider economic collectivity, self-sufficiency, and proto–black feminist critique. We end with a short meditation on black werk: a fashion photo shoot.