Health

That Which Is Possible is a portrait of a community of painters, sculptors, musicians and writers making work at the Living Museum, an art-space on the grounds of a large state-run psychiatric facility in Queens, New York. Shot over the course of two years and structured across the arc of a day, the film observes with an intimate lens and unspools like a musical, both bracing and tender. That Which Is Possible explores the liberatory and reparative functions that creative action has for a group of artists drawn together by shared struggle.

Threads of Belonging depicts the daily life of Layton House, a fictional therapeutic community, where doctors live with their schizophrenic patients. The characters and events of Layton House were drawn from writings of the anti-psychiatry movement, whose most famous proponent was R.D. Laing. In this film we see experimental therapies, power struggles, and the individual arcs of mental illness converge, as a community struggles to understand itself and determine its destiny.

Fred Tomaselli’s mosaics and collages compose patterns and images that suggest ancient global influences. His materials, however, are products of modern consumption, addiction, bodily abuse, and pleasure: pills, nicotine patches, bandages, and the like. The surfaces are coated with a lacquered veneer, making these mundane sources of highs or healing gleam. Interview by James Rondeau. A historical interview originally recorded in 1999 and re-edited in 2007.

Twice, 2020

The artist follows the British government's advice while self-isolating at home during the COVID-19 lockdown.

This feature-length experimental narrative, about women’s relationships to new reproduction technologies and genetic engineering, combines documentary interviews with field experts and a science fiction segment depicting stories of in-vitro fertilization and other methods. Underexposed: The Temple Of The Fetus examines ways the news media shapes perceptions and social attitudes towards medical topics.

Carole S. Vance is an anthropologist and writer and Associate Research Scientist of Public Health and Director of the Program for the Study of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Human Rights at Columbia University. She has written extensively on sexuality and public policy, as well as issues of gender, health, and medical anthropology. Her books include Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality (1984 and 1993) and Caught Looking: Feminism, Pornography, and Censorship (1988). Interview by Carole Tormollan. A historical interview originally recorded in 1989. 

The comings and goings of the late underground filmmaker, Curt McDowell—and the people and activities that came and went along with him—are the themes that run through this existential diary of daily life. McDowell was dying from AIDS-related illnesses during the production of the diary.

“An elegy for McDowell, the videowork captures Kuchar’s mournful remembrances of his long-lasting friendship with the young filmmaker. But it also has the inquisitive charm, perverse humor, and quirky candor that places Kuchar’s visual expressions in a gritty niche all their own.”

Voice: off is the autobiography of a forgotten man. Brain damaged, body violated, emotions crushed, Gerry who rarely spoke has now lost the power of speech. The video camera is his prosthesis and he borrows the memories of people who no longer need them. How can this be a comedy? It is. "Donigan Cumming looks at the violence of time that damages the body and exhausts memories. For the main character in Voice: off, Gerald, the illness is incurable. Two cancers are at work, one of which is attacking his throat.

We Were Hardly More Than Children tells an epic tale of an illegal abortion, as lived by two women on a perilous journey through a world that has little concern for their survival.

Paintings by Diane Messinger.

Music by Renato Umali.

Lena and friend: Flora Coker and Cecelia Condit.

An experimental documentary video project about individuals who have been transformed from so called “ordinary” citizens into activists, Witness To The Future seeks connections that unite people of all cultures, communities, races, and economic classes as they struggle for environmental and social change.

In creating this record of her pregnancy, the changes and special insight it brings, Millner borrows freely from anthropology, art history, soap operas, physical fitness scams, sex education manuals, and psychoanalysis. Through the Sunrise Of Conception and the Pillar Of Saltines, combatting morning sickness all the way to the big finish, Womb With A View details one woman’s odyssey into motherhood.

This video, shot in March 1970, contains raw footage from a Women’s Liberation event and discussion that took place in an art space. The tape begins with shots of the crowd mingling while music and speeches are heard in the background. Speakers address the audience, and the tape continues to record the discussion that follows. The main topics are abortion and contraception, and how they relate to power dynamics and the struggle for Women’s Liberation in general.

In Woodstock Festival 1969: First Aid, the Videofreex interview visitors and volunteers in and around the first aid tent about the level of health and hygiene at Woodstock. Topics range from the use of chlorine in the drinking water to protect against dysentery to the poisonous acid potentially circulating throughout the crowd. The Videofreex also interview a man with a pet lamb who discusses the relationship between vegetarianism and revolution.

Wrap, 2001

System failure: A man repeats the story of a prison stabbing as something goes wrong with the tape.

This title is also available on Donigan Cumming: Controlled Disturbance and Donigan Cumming Videoworks: Volume 3.