BlackStar is thrilled to announce that the seventh issue of Seen – the organization’s bi-annual journal of film and visual culture, dedicated to platforming nuanced and rigorous writing by and about Black, Brown and Indigenous communities globally – is now on sale. The issue is available for order here.
Seen 007 is guest edited by filmmaker, multidisciplinary artist and BlackStar Film Festival alum, Ja’Tovia Gary, who shared:
To me, being seen means recognition and incorporation, the responsibility of which belongs to those with whom we are in community…seeing and being seen requires the audacity to claim the role of narrator, to be the one who defines. Recognition and incorporation by those that matter is an act of self determination. We look in the mirror to be seen just as we look into the eyes of our beloved for our reflection.
Ja’Tovia Gary, Letter from the Editor
The release coincides with a special partnership between Seen and american grammar, a multifaceted space that cultivates creativity, conversation and community through coffee, books, art, events and community programming located in Kensington, Philadelphia. In celebration of issue 007, Gary and contributor Joy James have curated a selection of books available at the store.
In addition to american grammar, Seen 007 is on sale at stockists around the world including Amant, CARA, Interesting Books + Zines, Issues Magazine Shop, Mag Culture Shop, New Museum, Now Instant LA, Omoi Zakka, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia Printworks, Reparations Club, Skylight Books, Thayer and Washington Project for the Arts.
Seen 007 features a mix of conversations, profiles, interviews, essays and reviews, including A Love Ethic for the End of the World, a conversation between Ja’Tovia Gary and Dr. Joy James; J Wortham’s Finding Hope In the World Anew, a conversation between Wortham and first generation Palestinian writer, Zania Arafat about witnessing Gaza through social media, becoming a mother and why writing sustains her; Bridgett M. Davis’ Naked Acts Now, an essay reflecting on the second life of her 1996 debut feature film; Hanna Phifer’s Bride on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, a review of Tayarisha Poe’s The Young Wife; Notes of Influence highlighting the work and practices of artists Hugh Hayden and Charisse Weston; and Dr. Lamonda H. Stallings’ Crafting Intimacy, on the work of intimacy coordination as a decolonial and de-westernizing mission.
Other key contributors include Kaitlyn Greenidge, Anisia Uzeyman, Robert Pruitt, Heidi Saman, Kelli Weston, Meghana Kandlur, Jomo Fray, Shannon Baker Davis, Terilyn Shropshire, Louis Massiah, Amarie Gipson, Jasmin Hernandez and Yasmine El Rashidi.
On October 29, 2024, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, BlackStar will celebrate the release of Seen 007 with a launch event and conversation between Ja’Tovia Gary and Bridgett M. Davis. The two will dive deep into Davis’ work, exploring a variety of themes, including on screen depictions of Black bodies, sexuality, and intimacy coordination. The conversation will be followed by a reception in the museum.
Later this fall, BlackStar will co-present a series of curated screenings at the Barnes Foundation to coincide with the new exhibition, Mickalene Thomas: All About Love, and at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to coincide with group exhibition The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure. More information and the full schedule of curated screenings will be released in coming weeks.
Seen 007 is supported by a grant from Critical Minded and the National Endowment for the Arts and printed in Canada by Hemlock Printers. BlackStar Projects and its year-round programs are generously supported by Ford Foundation/Just Films, Independence Public Media Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Mighty Arrow Family Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Perspective Fund, The Philadelphia Foundation, PopCulture Collaborative, Samuel S. Fels Fund, Surdna Foundation, Wallace Foundation, William Penn Foundation and Wyncote Foundation, in addition to its board of directors, community partners, and a host of generous individual donors and organizations. Invaluable support is provided by the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.
About BlackStar Projects
BlackStar Projects is a non-profit organization, founded in 2012 by Maori Karmael Holmes as BlackStar Film Festival. They have since expanded into year-round programs, including film screenings, exhibitions, the annual film festival, a filmmaker seminar, a film production lab, and a journal of visual culture.
The organization creates the spaces and resources needed to uplift the work of Black, Brown and Indigenous artists working outside the confines of genre. Their programs provide artists opportunities for viable strategies for collaborations with other artists, audiences, funders, and distributors. BlackStar is working towards a liberatory world in which a vast spectrum of Black, Brown and Indigenous experiences is irresistibly celebrated in arts and culture.
This August, BlackStar celebrated the 13th edition of BlackStar Film Festival, which featured a lineup of 96 films from more than 40 countries, including 16 world premieres, 16 North American premieres, and 10 United States premieres. The world-renowned four-day event, which also features artist panels, parties, and networking opportunities for filmmakers, saw record-breaking ticket sales this year.