Community Video Then and Now: 1968 — The Future

About

This discussion and screening with members of a number of community video projects from the 1970s will seek to explore the community video movement that worked with groups and individuals to take up the media once used to misrepresent them to engage in new forms of collective self representation and reflection. In 1978 the Arts Council of Great Britain issued a list of 178 community arts projects in the country, of which between 50 and 100 used video. Women's groups, gay liberation activists, tenants associations and people of colour had the means to represent and reflect on their own experiences collectively. The Community Video movement was born out of a combination of grassroots activism, a shift from marches and demonstrations to socially engaged arts practiced and ushered in by new video technology which enabled mobility and instant playback. The themes of community and collaboration are central concerns for the summer school and through this event we will open up and engage with the history of community media in the UK and ask what relevance and impact it might have today. We will watch clips from films by Carry Gorney and the women of Milton Keynes, Ron Orders and Liberation Films and by Ron Peck and Four Corners Films.