I’ve mentioned my work with the Sandy Spring Museum a couple of times over the past several months, specifically the most enthralling part of that work being the African American doll makers videos and now interviews with African American acapella group In Process, a wonderful, but inherently unGoogleable collective of women here in the DC area. I know they’ve been really busy recently, performing at events centered around Juneteenth, a holiday that I’d only become aware of a couple of years in advance of its official recognition as a federal holiday in 2021…
A lot of things that are discussed in these interviews really get my mind turning. Some of it I don’t agree with, plenty of it I’m horrified by, and more recently I’ve become a familiar enough figure that we can actually have conversations about things – I’m no longer just the guy behind the cameras – and not because I’m looking to change anyone’s minds or need my two cents accepted, but sometimes I want to know more, sometimes I wish I knew less. Sometimes I need clarification because it’s easy to forget what those of us around us don’t know, could never have known – and I don’t always mean big stuff (like Mark Puryear saying “well, we all know the specifics of the challenges of urban Black youth” and just moving on… ) but the little stuff like “you know, that department store where we all hung out, THAT style”. Getting a visual for slowly-integrating Washington DC – for an America who’s interior barriers were LEGALLY dissolved, trying to figure out how to get along or whether or not it even WANTED to get along… getting a feel for that has been a fascinating journey. One that I’m worried I’m not actually up to the task of perpetrating…
I feel like these are IMPORTANT conversations and that I’m not doing them justice by simply being a technician… they need a FILM MAKER of some sort.
I’m standing here in the wings, behind the cameras, making sure nothing blinks out or breaks, overheats or runs out of memory, just happy to be in the room. It’s an experience more people should have. Hopefully these recordings will bubble to the surface somewhere and more people WILL.
