This Side of Salina
HD video and stereo sound
Duration: 12 min
2024
Four Black women from the city of Syracuse, New York, reflect on sexuality, youthful regret, emotional vulnerability, raising a daughter, and working in reproductive health services. In a series of their own choreographed vignettes, each woman thoughtfully engages with the neighborhoods she’s known all of her life. Two performers flip through classic 1960s titles by Black authors in a bookstore. Others sit in a hat store finding time to pour into each other, as mentors and confidantes. These are businesses that are owned by local Black women, and they know it. In Brady Market, a community grocery, they playfully shop and chat with ease and confidence. They dance to their own rhythms in the outdoor plaza of the Everson Museum of Art. Together they look down at the city from its highest point and ponder how to battle the inequities of the place that they call home.
Commissioned as a large-scale architectural projection by Light Work as part of the UVP Residential Media Commission program, supported by New York State Council for the Arts. The installation runs from October 10 – December 21, 2024.
CREDITS
Featuring: J’Viona Baker, Vernahia Davis, Ja’Rhea Dixon, Angela Stroman
Director: Lynne Sachs
Cinematographers: Anneka Herre, Lynne Sachs, Zelikha Zohra Shoja, Monae Kyhara Sims
Editor: G. Anthony Svatek
Production support: Minnie S. McMillian, Devon Narine Singh, Hilary Warner
Additional recording: Saptarshi Lahiri
Sound Design: Kevin T. Allen
In consultation with Anneka Herre, Program Director of Light Work | Urban Video Project, Tiffany Lloyd, Director of Women’s Health and Empowerment, Allyn Foundation Campaign Manager, Layla’s Got You
Shot on location in Syracuse, New York at Black Citizens Brigade, Brady Market, The Classic Bop Hat Boutique, Everson Museum of Art Community Plaza, and Upper Onondaga Park
Light Work’s Urban Video Project is pleased to present the exhibition of This Side of Salina exploring reproductive justice from October 10 – December 21 at the architectural projection venue on the Everson Museum facade in downtown Syracuse.