South Side Seventies: Video Screening and Conversation

South Side Seventies: Video Screening and Conversation

Join us for a special screening of a collection of rarely-seen videos from the 1970s, which were made by and about the residents of the South Side. These candid, warm, and sometimes hilarious portraits are revealing and provide an authentic portrayal of Black life and culture in Chicago – something that mainstream film and TV often neglected. After the screening, join us for discussion with Anton Seals (Grow Greater Englewood), Denise Zaccardi (Community TV Network) and Sarah Chapman (Media Burn), moderated by AE Stevenson (UChicago Department of Cinema and Media Studies).

Bios:

AE Stevenson is Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies. She is currently working on her book manuscript where, through an analysis of Vine, TikTok, Instagram’s The Shade Room, and “blackfishing,” she argues that Black women and girls have fundamentally changed the visual language of the Internet. She has published in Feminist Media Histories and Catalyst.

Denise Zaccardi is Executive Director and founder of Community Television Network (CTVN). She holds a Ph.D. in Communications from The Union Institute and wrote the nation’s first dissertation on media arts curriculum for low-­income, minority youth. She earned an M.S. in Early Childhood Education from State College in Buffalo, and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Dayton. Dr. Zaccardi has put together a team of seasoned artist/teachers carefully selected not only for their exceptional ability to engage and teach disaffected youth; but to represent a broad range of vital skills and knowledge including psychology, marketing, organizational dynamics, writing, audio, editing, producing, directing, graphics, and animation.

Anton Seals Jr. is an organizer, entrepreneur, educator, community connector, Impact producer. Anton’s work is dedicated to service and active engagement through the use of media arts, community organizing, and empowerment to dismantle oppressive systems impacting divested and oppressed communities. Anton is currently the Lead Steward (Executive Director) of Grow Greater Englewood, a social enterprise focusing on building an equitable and resilient local food system that fosters protections of vacant land in divested communities and focuses on connecting those residents with community wealth-building opportunities.

Sara Chapman has been executive director of Media Burn since 2009, and has been an integral part of the organization since its founding in 2003. You can catch her online at Media Burn’s biweekly Virtual Talks with Video Activists series on Thursdays. A scholar of early video and television, her article “Guerrilla Television in the Digital Archive” was published in the Journal of Film and Video. In 2019, she was the producer of the feature-length experimental film, Ghosts in the Machine, which toured internationally. She’s also an avid swimmer and former co-chair of her Masters swim team, the Chicago Smelts.