Intervening Islands: Cinematic and Photographic Art of the US Possessions is an exhibition that brings together contemporary artists reflecting on the US military presence in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines, and Hawai’i after the War of 1898 (commonly known as the Spanish-American War), connecting it to the intertwined histories of film and photography. The story of the creation of the US empire is also a story of film, photography, and propaganda. The war nearly coincided with the birth of cinema, dating to the year 1895 with the Lumière brothers’ first commercial screening in Paris and mirrored in the ensuing years by the Edison Manufacturing Company in the United States—a cinematic explosion that almost instantaneously reverberated in these island nations. Earlier experimentations with photography made the invention of cinema possible, and both were used as tools to construct the US colonial project. In the 21st century, photography, film, and now video have continued to play a role in the militarization of these islands—but our relationship to this media has evolved. This exhibition is composed of video, film, and photography works created by contemporary artists whose identities have been shaped in the aftermath of the 1898 war, using these once colonial tools to call for liberation today. Paired with archival photographs and films, the works reflect the similar struggles but differing statuses of these islands after 1898.
“The terrific range of project proposals we receive each year speaks to the mobile and porous disciplinary boundaries of contemporary art practice, and to the rich and inventive ways writers approach art today. They are alert to the urgent need to expand the conventions of art history and criticism with ideas from other discourses, such as black studies, transnational and diaspora studies, gender and women’s studies, and LGBT studies. The work of lesser known and overlooked artists and art communities continues to be mined, with writers articulating new ways to counter the striking imbalances of race, class and gender that continue to affect the arts and the culture industry.”