As the process of globalization marches into the 21st century with ever-increasing speed, different cultures and populations continue to come into contact and occasional conflict in unimaginable and unexpected ways, often producing novel forms of artistic output in the process. The 2011-2012 Depth of Field series, “Art and Culture in Transit(ion),” explores the connective threads that simultaneously unite and transform past and present, urban and rural, and high and low culture throughout our interconnected world. Drawing on the Humanities’ foundation in the human experience, the fall semester presented three films that look at inter- and intra-national migration by groups of people seeking prosperity in the fraught landscape of the global economy. In the spring semester, the series turns its attention to the migration of the arts into, out of and beyond their traditional confines with three films that follow the struggle of artists working at the boundaries of literature and painting.
Films in the Series:
Last Train Home (2009)
Directed by Lixin Fan
Which Way Home (2009)
Directed by Rebecca Cammisa
A Small Act (2010)
Directed by Jennifer Arnold
Louder Than a Bomb (2010)
Directed by Greg Jacobs and Jon Siskel
Waste Land (2010)
Directed by Lucy Walker
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010)
Directed by Banksy
Curated by Kris Fallon, graduate student in the Film Studies department at UC Berkeley.