Media Burn Archive + On The Real Film
Images: (Left): Shelves of archives at Media Burn Archive. Photo by Edvetté Wilson Jones. A portrait of On The Real Film’s Erin Babbin and Michael Sullivan at their studio in Chicago, IL. Photo by Edvetté Wilson Jones.
“As documentarians we know that preservation is vital, and as artists we know that archives are the way that we can connect our work to those who came before us and to those who will come after us.”
ARCHIVE:
Media Burn Archive
Media Burn Archive is a 501(c)3 nonprofit in Chicago that collects, produces, and distributes documentary video created by artists, activists, and community groups. Their mission is to use archival media to deepen context and encourage criticial thought through a social justice lens. The collection’s roots are in the “guerrilla television” movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when the technology of portable videotape mobilized new groups of mediamakers to tell their communities’ stories with cheap, easy-to-use video cameras. No longer shut out of film and television unions or burdened by expensive equipment no one would teach them how to use, ordinary people were empowered to tell their own stories. The full collection of 8,000+ videos is available for free online at mediaburn.org.
READ MORE: Interview with Sara Chapman of Media Burn Archive
ARTIST:
On The Real Film
On The Real Film is a Chicago based documentary production company founded in 2011 by partners Erin Babbin and Michael Sullivan. Born and raised in Chicago, Babbin studied documentary film at Columbia College Chicago and continues her family’s tradition of artmaking led by her grandmother in photography and her mother in filmmaking. Sullivan is an El Paso, Texas native and studied photography, painting and printmaking at The University of Texas, Austin. On The Real Film’s work in cinema is screened internationally, and since its founding they have worked documenting artists and musicians, arts organizations, nonprofits and university programs. On The Real Film values storytelling and keeping it real, striving for honesty in filmmaking, centering people in the margins, and uplifting Chicago voices and narratives. (www.ontherealfilm.com)