Join BAAM at The Gem in welcoming Snakehouse VT ‘s Single Channel VT International Video Festival on Tuesday, April 21st at 6:00 pm.

*Just one look, that’s all it took*

can you see me now?, centers perception and “the gaze” with eleven video works that consider seeing from points poetic to political and their intersections.

This year’s festival theme was inspired, in part, by Walid Ra’ad’s Miraculous Beginnings part two (one part of Ra’ad’s three part video, Dead Weight of a Quarrel Hangs), wherein the operator of a government surveillance camera (#18) assigned to monitor human activities on the Beirut seaside promenade turns his camera away every day from the designated targets towards the setting sun. If a simple shift of view can become a transgressive gesture, and perhaps the only logical response to an illogical situation, where will we look as the sun sets?

What are the destructive / captivating powers of looking? Ask Lot’s wife, Eurydice, Medusa, or James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Is the power of looking and being looked at equal? Behold! It’s there in the word: to hold, to possess, to claim and control. Just one look. What are we taking?

Participating artists: Carolyn Lambert, Chloe Abidi, M Freeman, Matt Freiburghaus, Johanna Evans, Melissa Huang, Cecilia Kim, Lin Yen-Ju, Selina Lee, Ryan Aasen, Anika Todd

*Just One Look, music and lyrics by Doris Troy and Gregory Carroll – recorded by Doris Troy in 1963.

Single Channel VT is a project of Snake House VT, an artist-run collaborative based in Vermont dedicated to supporting under-represented artists through exhibitions, performances, screenings, and other events and projects. We promote the exchange of ideas through unique programming, embracing work that presents challenging and provocative contemporary content that is outside of, or directly eschews, the predominant commercial system.

 5:00 pm Social Hour with live music from Kale Churchill

6:00 pm Video Festival Screening

Tickets are free.