Marilyn Nance
MATRIARCH & STORYTELLER.
ELDER: Film, Photography, & Archives Lineages.
photo by Albert Chong.
Marilyn Nance was born in New York City in 1953. Her mother worked in a factory, and her father manned an elevator at the post office. She was the first in her family to go to art school — Pratt Institute — although that decision was met with reluctance from her mother. "If I declare that I'm an artist," Nance says, "that doesn't sound like I'm gonna have a job."
But she's had work her whole life. Nance has been published by the likes of Life and The New York Times. And yet, according to the Library of Congress, "her photography is incidental to her central purpose: the exploration of human connections."
Nance has twice been a finalist for the W. Eugene Smith award in humanistic photography, her website biography reads, "for her body of work on African American spiritual culture in America ... [including the] Black Indians of New Orleans, an African village in South Carolina, churches in Brooklyn, and the first Black church in America."
Her work is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Library of Congress, and has been published in The World History of Photography, History of Women in Photography and The Black Photographers Annual.
In her photos of family gatherings, religious ceremonies and daily life, she captures an unguarded, tender beauty observable only to an insider.
"I have this cloak of invisibility that I put on," she says, explaining her other superpower.
Like many artists, Nance is first an observer, a people-person, a humanist. For her, the camera is just one way of processing life's experiences.
"We're all endowed with these powers, and I think we just need to acknowledge that," she says. "We're all really special; we all have stuff. But it's up to us to find out what our stuff is."
Nance's first trip out of the United States, to Lagos, Nigeria, at age 23, was for FESTAC’77 - the second, and final World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture that included more than 15,000 artists, intellectuals and performers from 55 nations worldwide. Nance served as the photographer for the US contingent of the North American delegation. The trip was infused with her own experience of working to understand family lineages and human connections. Those images are collected in her new book LAST DAY IN LAGOS, an archival encounter of her documentation of the landmark festival, published in 2022 by CARA/Fourthwall Books.
Learn more about Marilyn Nance’s extensive career https://www.marilynnance.com/
Other references via NPR.org and StudioMuseum.org
Al Santana
PATRIARCH & STORYTELLER.
Elder: Film, Moving Image, & Painting Lineages.
photographer unknown.
Alfred J. Santana is a professional film and video producer, director, cinematographer, editor, abstract painter, and overall visual artist. Over the past 30 years he has made numerous award-winning documentaries, public affairs films and videos that have aired on both network and public television. Mr. Santana’s production company, Al Santana Productions, produces independent documentaries, narrative and experimental work for television, the web and theatrical presentation. The company also produces industrial and corporate videos.
His award winning documentary film, “Voices of The Gods” (1985) takes a look at two ancient West African religions that are practiced in the United States today. It premiered at the 1985 Margaret Mead International Film Festival and went on to screen at festivals in France, Italy, Burkina Faso, Canada, and throughout the United States. “Voices of The Gods” is currently housed in the permanent collection of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Research Center in Black Culture and numerous colleges, universities and museums, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of African Art.
In 2012 Al co-produced “Salty Dog Blues” a 52 minute documentary about retired Merchant Marines of color and their relationship to the National Maritime Union. A recipient of a New York State Council On The Arts independent filmmaker grant, Al in collaboration with historian Denise Belén Santiago worked over five years on this compelling documentary that tells the story of men and women mariners of color from Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Suriname, and the U.S. mainland.
As a freelance cinematographer, Al worked on the Oscar nominated “Who Killed Vincent Chin” directed by Christine Choy; “Born In Flames” directed by Lizzy Borden; “I Be Done Been Was Is” directed by Debra Robinson; “Litany For Survival: The Life and Work of Audre Lorde” directed by Michelle Parkerson and produced by Ada Gay Griffin, and “Namibia, Independence Now” directed by Christine Choy, produced by Pearl Bowser, among others.
As staff cinematographer for New Jersey Public Television 1977 to 1980, Al shot a variety of documentaries, including a TV special on famed recording artist and song stylist Sarah Vaughan titled Listen To The Sun.
In the course of his career, Mr. Santana has traveled extensively throughout Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean and is the recipient of production grants from the New York State Council On The Arts, The New York Foundation for The Arts, and the Jerome Foundation.
As adjunct faculty, Mr. Santana taught film and video production courses at the City College of New York for fourteen years and the Digital Film Academy in New York City for three years. Al Santana holds an MFA degree in digital cinema from National University, a BS degree in sociology and film from The City University of New York’s CUNY BA program.
Al is a former member of IATSE Local 600 Cinematographers Union. Currently, a member of The Black Documentary Collective, DV Republic and The Independent Feature Project.
There’s so much more to learn about Mr. Santana, so click HERE to do so.