Deborah Stratman
- 2016The Illinois Parables
- 2019Vever (for Barbara)
- 2023Last Things
A Chicago artist who films a place to find out what people believed there: a mound in Illinois, a gold town in the Yukon, rocks that will be here after us.
Stratman was born in Washington, D.C., in 1967 and lives in Chicago, where she teaches at the University of Illinois. MoMA gave her a retrospective in 2013, and she has held Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships. Her films sit between experimental film and documentary, and come at belief and power through the places they shaped. She also works in sound, sculpture, drawing and photography.
The Illinois Parables tells eleven episodes from the state's history, and festival programmes called it an essay film. Last Things turns to deep time, telling evolution and extinction from the point of view of rocks, and played at Sundance and the Berlinale in 2023.
As her health failed, Barbara Hammer invited four filmmakers, Stratman among them, to make new work from her unfinished footage. Stratman's Vever (for Barbara) sets Hammer's footage from a 1975 motorcycle trip to Guatemala beside Maya Deren's writing on 1950s Haiti, a homage to both women.
Films
Where to start with Deborah Stratman, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Still from The Illinois Parables to come. The Illinois Parables
Eleven episodes from Illinois history, among them the mound builders of Cahokia, a utopian commune and the path of a tornado. Each is told with reenactment, archive film or intertitles, and long, steady shots of the place where it happened.
Still from Optimism to come. Optimism
A portrait of Dawson City in the Yukon: cancan dancers, curlers, ore smelters, gold sifted from river gravel and a mirrored disc on a cliffside, in a valley that sits in shadow all winter. Charlie Chaplin's music plays over it.
Still from Vever (for Barbara) to come. Vever (for Barbara)
Barbara Hammer's footage of Guatemalan markets, shot on a 1975 motorcycle trip, set beside Maya Deren's writing on failure and initiation in 1950s Haiti and Teiji Ito's vever drawings. Hammer shot it and speaks in it.
Still from Last Things to come. Last Things
Evolution and extinction told from the point of view of stones, seen under the microscope and across whole landscapes. The geologist Marcia Bjørnerud speaks over it, with passages from J.-H. Rosny's early science fiction, and people slowly fall out of the picture.