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Spring 2000's Kirkland Project artist-in-residence was filmmaker Cheryl Dunye. Dunye has produced several widely distributed film and video works. Her most recent film, Watermelon Woman, explores African-American and lesbian film history, inter-racial lesbian relationships and the complexities of identity. Set in Philadelphia, Watermelon Woman tells the story of a vivacious, twenty-something lesbian who is determined to make a video documentary about an obscure 1930's black actress popularly known as the "Watermelon Woman." Using fiction, documentary and pseudo-documentary styles of filmmaking, Dunye creates what is rapidly becoming known as the "Dunyementary," a mock documentary style expressed with humor, energy, wit and passion. Watermelon Woman has won awards at gay and lesbian film festivals in Berlin and Los Angeles.
From January 17, 2000 to February 11, 2000, Dunye taught an intensive, four-week course titled "Art 200: Video Activism." Students had the opportunity to examine, with Dunye, contemporary issues in activist film and videomaking as they planned, shot, produced and edited their own video pieces.
Besides teaching the course during her one-month residency, Dunye held an informal discussion and screening of her work-in-progress, Stranger Inside, a piece that examines the life of women in prisons. She also hosted two faculty workshops, one on gay/lesbian issues in video and one on race in video. As part of the month-long residency, Alexandra Juhasz presented Women of Vision to the Hamilton community. The residency culminated in a screening of the Art 200 students' pieces.
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