Film-In-Residence "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"

About

Marion Stokes recorded American television 24 hours a day for 30 years from 1975 until her death in 2012. It started in 1979 with the Iranian Hostage Crisis at the dawn of the twenty-four hour news cycle, and ended on December 14, 2012 while the Sandy Hook massacre played on television as Marion passed away.

In between, Marion recorded on 70,000 VHS tapes, capturing revolutions, lies, wars, triumphs, catastrophes, bloopers, talk shows, and commercials that tell us who we were, and show how television shaped the world of today. Now her massive cache of tape recordings is being digitized for future generations and made available via the Internet Archive.

Marion Stokes was a civil rights demonstrator, activist, librarian, prolific archivist, and producer/commentator on Input, a local Philadelphia panel discussion program that ran from 1968 through early 1971. It was a groundbreaking series, featuring academics, community and religious leaders and artists from the Philadelphia area with a focus on social justice and progressive thinking.

On Saturday afternoons for one month, tour the garden and exhibits at the Velaslavasay Panorama, including the 360-degree painted panorama Shengjing Panorama, watch Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project, and see the temporary illustrated tableau Scenes of a Recording, inspired by the life and diligent work of Marion Stokes.

The screening is part of Velaslavasay Panorama’s Film-In-Residence series and will be shown every Saturday from August 27th - September 17th, from 3:30pm - 5:30pm. Film-In-Residence is a casual film screening series where guests are invited to tour the exhibits of the Velaslavasay Panorama for the first half hour and curated films have a four-week run with an accompanying temporary display.