Through the Repellent Fence, 2017 (74 min). Directed by Sam Wainwright Douglas. Followed by conversation with Raven Chacon (Diné Nation) artist, composer, and musician; and Dustin Tahmahkera (Comanche Nation), Interim Director and Associate Professor of American Indian Studies.
Film Description | Through the Repellent Fence on IMDB
Follow the creation of a two-mile long ephemeral art installation by Native Americans artists Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez and Kade L. Twist, known as “Postcommodity.” Their piece “Repellent Fence” installs floating balloons north and south of the border to represent a metaphorical “stitching” together of the United States and Mexico.
This film was aired on television in April 2018 as part of the documentary series America Reframed.
Raven Chacon (Diné) is a composer of chamber music, a performer of experimental noise music, and an installation artist. He performs regularly as a solo artist as well as with numerous ensembles in the Southwest USA, and is a former member of the American Indian arts collective Postcommodity. As an educator, Chacon has served as composer-in-residence for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP) since 2004, teaching string quartet composition to hundreds of American Indian high school students living on reservations in the Southwest U.S. Under his instruction, this project was awarded the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from The President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in 2011. Chacon has presented his work widely at the 2017 Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, Vancouver Art Gallery, ABC No Rio, REDCAT, La Biennale di Venezia – Biennale Musica, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, 18th Biennale of Sydney, and The Kennedy Center among other traditional and non-traditional venues.
