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video, still photographs, live music july 2003
Mark Brecke,
Annice Jacoby, Lori B 
videos
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9min50sec |
Fort Point Project,
San Francisco 2000
Chip Lord, Starr Sutherland, Annice Jacoby, Mark
Brecke,
Sara Foust,
R.J. Fleck, and Riccardo Morrison
Both individuals and
nations struggle to find alternatives to war. In May of 1999, a global
conference for peace was held in den Haag, Netherlands, the first in 100 years.
The Fort Point Project staged a three hour live performance, DMZ: A PEACEWORK,
as the opening event. At dawn, across from the International War Crimes
Tribunal, San Francisco artists created a temporary De-Militarized Zone and
orchestrated a multimedia performance that greeted political figures, religious
leaders, and peace activists from around the world as they arrived at the
conference.
The Fort Point
Project was founded to engage communities in active dialogue about the meaning
and manifestation of peace. The project was named to acknowledge the bitter
irony that the fortresses we’ve built can no longer protect us from the
treacheries we ourselves have created. The video displayed here is art rather
than documentary, composed of video from the live performance, newsreel
footage, and live footage shot in Kosovo by Mark Brecke during the peace
conference.
Fort Point Project
is a collaboration of composers, media artists, choreographers, poets and
citizens of international communities who grapple with war. Annice Jacoby, as
artistic director, shaped and integrated the efforts of Lori B, Mark Brecke,
Bruce Curtis, R.J. Fleck, Sara Foust, Julie Heffernan, Daniel Kobialka, Chip
Lord, Riccardo Morrison and Simone Nelson. Contributing artists, in den Haag,
included Pauline de Groot, Abby Lumesden, Nell and Jan Pronk, Eric Staller,
Tamiko Thiel, Bread and Puppet Theater and singers, dancers and musicians from
all over the world. Poetry Flash, Interfaith Center of New York, and the United
Nations provided sponsorship for this project.
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26min |
super 8mm film and
35 mm b/w photographs
Mark Brecke
War as a Second
Language combines original Super 8mm footage and 35mm stills with an audio
track pieced together from archival documentary footage of the Vietnam War.
Mark Brecke culled from 15 years of news reels, documentaries, and raw footage
of the Vietnam War to create an audio track of actual sounds which he then
juxtaposed with moving and still images he shot recently in Vietnam and
Cambodia. Tourists replace soldiers and the audio design becomes a haunting and
evocative narrative about history and the legacies of war. Although the piece
looks period, only the audio is archival - all visual images are
contemporary
still photos
Mark
Brecke
1. Orphan Brothers, Kigali, Rwanda, 1997
2.
Witness to War, Saddam Hospital, An Nasiriyah, Iraq, April 2003
3. Remains
of the Genocide, Natarama Church, Kigali, Rwanda 1997
4. Ramallah Refugee
Camp, Palestine Spring 2002
5. Kosovar Albanian Immolation, Mitrovica,
Kosovo 1999
6. Serbian Civilians Leaving Their Homes, Gnjilane, Kosovo
1999
Mark Brecke has just
returned from a trip to Iraq, Laos, Ghana, Rumania, and India sponsored by
“Letters to America.” In Iraq, Mark was “embedded” with a
French journalist from Le Monde. This was the fourth war Mark has
photographed.
live music
Lori B
Part poet, part
snake charmer, part vitamin, Lori B’s work offers radical intimacy as an
antidote for our culture’s obsession with technology and objects. The song
MY COUNTRY emerged out of sadness and confusion following Desert Storm
but wasn’t recorded until May of 2001. After September 11th, the song
began to provide a powerful and poignant emotional rallying point (heard on
KPFA and Democracy Now!). More at: www.loriB.net
now
www.savinggrace2003.org
SAVING GRACE began
in the wake of 9/11 as a citizens' campaign to encourage reflection and
dialogue at Thanksgiving gatherings around America. In that climate of fear,
hostility, revenge and retaliation, we felt it essential to acknowledge our
commonality and to build a link between private ceremony and public
policy.
In 2001 and 2002, a
coalition of artists, educators, spiritual and community leaders and
organizations formed a coalition called Saving Grace to promote the idea that a
renewed sense of ritual at Thanksgiving might become a focus for peace
activism. We offered a simple set of "tools" - a song, dinner table questions,
a new wishbone ritual.
A Wake for War is
observation, exclamation, documentation and verification of the problem. Saving
Grace is a ray of optimism about the solution. Please join us in saving grace
so that the love of life will prevail over the will to kill.
Mark Brecke 415-543-1240
Annice Jacoby 415-648-6980
Lori B 415-643-7325
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