Artist/filmmaker Sharon Lockhart returns to REDCAT with two films shot in Poland. Podwórka (31 min, 2009) is an exploration of the real and imaginary playgrounds children inhabit in the courtyards of Łódz. During the shooting, she met 9-year old Milena, and kept in contact with her. Rudzienko (53 min, 2016) is structured around summer retreats Lockhart organized with Milena and the other teenagers living in a girls’ home in a small town near Warsaw. Through exercises in movement, dance, yoga, craft, cooking, writing, and performance, she encouraged the girls to bring forth their personal narratives – finding an original way to acknowledge, yet bridge, the language barrier. Following the trajectory of a girl’s maturation, Lockhart’s collaboration with Milena echoes similar, felicitous experiments in the films of Jean Rouch. 

In person: Sharon Lockhart