VDB Asks... Cynthia Madansky

Cynthia Madansky’s film projects engage with cultural and political themes, such as identity, nationalism, the transgression of borders, displacement, nuclear arms and war, foregrounding the consequences of politics on the daily lives of individuals.

Her award winning films have been shown as single-channel works and multi-channel installations at numerous international venues including, the MoMA, NYC, Istanbul Modern, Walker Art Museum, Berlin Film Festival, Rotterdam Film Festival, Cinéma du Réel, Tehran Film Festival, India 30 City Peace Festival, and Homeworks Beirut.

Her films have received awards from international film festivals including Cinéma du Réel, Images Festival, Huesca Film Festival, and the Documentary Film Festival Madrid.

Madansky has received numerous grants including the Fulbright Grant, Guggenheim Fellowship, Rome Prize, New York State Council on the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Art Matters, The Jerome Foundation, National 

Foundation for Jewish Culture, Paul Robeson Funding Exchange, North Dakota Historical Society and the Astraea Foundation. She was an artist in residence at MacDowell, The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, Ucross Foundation and the Santa Fe Art Institute.

1. Can you tell us something about your background? 

I was born in Santa Monica, California, moved to Long Island, New York, and  finished high school in a northern suburb of Chicago. I have been based in NYC since 1987.

2. What inspired you to become an artist? To use film, video? 

I made my first 16mm film while a student at Washington University in St. Louis in the 70s. I was taking a feminist theory class and the professor said we can make films instead of writing a paper, so I made a reinterpretation of Simone De Beauvoir’s perspective on marriage, shot in the St. Louis zoo. In undergraduate art school, painting was my primary medium, but I also always made short films. I continue to make films and draw, and only paint when I have access to a studio.

3. Did you have formal art training/schooling?

Yes, I studied art at the Bezalel Academy in West Jerusalem, at Cooper Union, and the Whitney Independent Study Program in NY, and completed an MFA at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

4. How do you balance life and art? Are you able to make a living through creating art?

I  negotiate two types of work, making money and making art. I have done many jobs including graphic design work, teaching film, selling paintings and drawings, grants and more.

5. What influences or motivates you in the world?

Justice, human rights, nuclear abolition, social movements. I am greatly influenced by dance, visual arts, film, music, and literature.

6. What artists or movements are you following right now?

I am not really following anything right now, just working on Index:Trace!

7. What was the last exhibition you saw?

The Whitney Biennial.

8. What has been the best screening experience of your work?

Screening Devotion at the reopening of the newly designed MoMA.

9. What are you working on right now?

I am working on a film called Index:Trace, that looks at the ecological impacts of the entire nuclear complex — Uranium, Fuel Production, Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear Power and Radioactive Waste — across all 50 states as told by affected communities and other people who are working towards nuclear harm reduction and nuclear abolition.

10. How do you start a piece? How do you know when a piece is finished?

I start a film with a concept and then engage in research and writing, then production, then editing. You just know when a film is finished, each piece is very different, so there is no formulaic answer. 

11. What are you currently reading? Watching?

Nuclear Is Not The Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power In The Age of Climate Change by M.V. Ramana.