LUNCH WORKSHOP FOR UCHICAGO STUDENTS
In Committee of Six, a group of people gather to enact minutes from meetings held in 1955 on the University of Chicago campus that played a part in future redlining policies, changing the social and physical landscape of Hyde Park, Kenwood, Woodlawn, and surrounding neighborhoods. The film documents the collaborative, participatory process that engaged the creative team in challenging conversations that reckon with race, history, identity, and responsibility - but how did the process lead to the finished film?
Join Committee of Six director/creator Fred Schmidt-Arenales (BA ‘13) and creative producer/performer Ellenor Riley-Condit (BA ‘11) for a special screening and workshop that investigates the filmmakers' process. Participants will watch the film, hear from the filmmakers about their goals and strategies for the project, and use self-reflective prompts to consider how their own collaborative projects might employ similar strategies.
TRAILER: https://vimeo.com/747685107
Box lunch included.
Presented by Arts + Public Life and the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture with support from UChicago Careers in the Arts.
On Friday, Nov 3 at 7pm, join the filmmakers and cast for Committee of Six: Screening and Public Discussion at the Green Line Performing Arts Center (329 E Garfield Blvd).
Workshop Presenters:
Director Fred Schmidt-Arenales is an artist and filmmaker. His projects attempt to bring awareness to unconscious processes on the individual and group level. He has presented films, installations, and performances internationally at venues including SculptureCenter and Abrons Arts Center, (New York), Links Hall (Chicago), The Darling Foundry (Montreal), LightBox and The Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia), Artspace (New Haven), The Museum of Fine Arts and FotoFest (Houston), Künstlerhaus Halle für Kunst und Medien (Graz), and Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna). His recent film Committee of Six is an official selection of the 2022-23 Architecture and Design Film Festival and was awarded a jury prize for best film at the 2023 Onion City Experimental Film Festival. Schmidt-Arenales holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago and his master’s in fine arts from the University of Pennsylvania.
Ellenor Riley-Condit works at the intersection of performance creation and liberatory praxis. As a performer, director, producer, and facilitator she often works between roles in a process to co-create a vision that prioritizes both artistic rigor and collective care. She is a member of The Syndicate, a network of artists producing new plays, performances, and events by women, queer, and trans people. Recent projects include: Committee of Six (experimental documentary, creative producer/ performer), Then We'll Rest (new play workshop production, performer), OH, BUDDY (staged reading/development process, director/performer), The Trojan Women (director). She is an organizer with Calling Us In, a national network of creatives bringing anti-racist education and action to theater and performance communities, and a member of Education for Racial Equity's 2023 cohort in Somatic Abolitionism, which works to grow white peoples' capacity for addressing white body supremacy. She teaches at Vassar's Powerhouse Theater Training Program. She is pursuing a PhD in Performance as Public Practice at UT Austin. MFA: Goddard College. BA: University of Chicago.