MFA Film/Video Production, California Institute of the Arts
B.A. Creative Writing/Media Arts/Classics, University of Arizona

• BIS 177 Introduction to Media Making
• BISMCS 234 Digital Editing
• BISMCS 343 Archival Filmmaking
• BISMCS 472 Personal Filmmaking

I treat every class like a new film and see working with students in media production as a method for critical intervention. It is my goal as an educator to introduce students to the methods that have broadened my horizons over the years, inspiring them to explore subjects that interest them from perspectives they may not have yet considered. In my teaching I treat arts and media practice as an essential method for inquiry, exploration, and community engagement. My production courses include critical analysis of a variety of modes of production and explore alternative options such as those used in media collective practices and experimental filmmaking. Each production group not only must produce a project but also understand their relationship to the participant and the power relations in the decision-making process in media production and distribution. For example, many of the production courses operate as both a discussion/critique and a production course. Students learn critical media literacy aimed at analyzing mainstream representations of marginalized people(s) while exploring the concepts of voice, style and structure and positionality while using alternative productions that challenge dominant images. Students make short media productions in which they turn the critical lens on themselves by occupying and interrogating the roles of producer, subject and audience.

My filmmaking practice is grounded in feminist praxis and archival/historical storytelling. Over the past twenty-five years I have been deepening my creative practice, which explores the structures that have shaped the lives of Americans at the margins who live here. I have written, directed, filmed, edited, and produced ten short films and three feature-length documentary films.

I am invested in the possibilities of cultural exchange through media creation and collective remembering through the investigation and appropriation of personal and institutional archives. What drives all of my films is the chance to provide stories and experiences that can help viewers make connections between themselves, their communities, their histories.