Arts of the Working Class presents for the first time in Germany, with the kind courtesy of Terrassen (Denmark), the experimental films of Edward Owens: Remembrance: A Portrait Study (1967) and Private Imaginings and Narrative Facts (1968-70). In the midst of the preparations of its 18th Issue, Arts of the Working Class sees many layers of meaningful distraction and awareness in Owens’ films in regards to the notions of care in intimate and public spaces. Owens films deeply relate a critical gaze to the entanglements that stand behind what AWC calls the “World Hell Organization”: The liberal world order of the UN, the World Trade Organization, unipolar American dominance and Western supremacy. Owens films are early testimonies of a silent hegemony depriving minorities in the US from the same rights of white people.

 

And so this selection of films asks: How are our ways of living, of experiencing our bodies, of being healthy inflected by the way geopolitics, white supremacy and class warfare from above colonises our bloodstreams as we are finally thrust into the age of the pharmapornographical?

 

Edward Owens (1949–2009) was a queer African-American filmmaker who was involved with the New American Cinema of the 1960s. During this time, Owens moved to New York and was hired by Jonas Mekas to work at the Film-makers’ Cinemateque. Mekas invited Owens to join the FMC for distribution as a part of the New American Cinema movement, the moment he saw his films. In 2016, Executive Director MM Serra collaborated with IndieCollect to preserve the four Owens films within the NACG collection through a 5k digital scanning process. The digital transfer was supervised by NACG’s digital media specialist Sheldon Henderson.