"Eco-Derived Pigment & Material Image-Making”

What happens when a plant becomes part of a moving image? Not only as a subject, but as a material from which an image can be made? This artist talk examines eco-derived materials as a form of tactile image-making, considering how organic and found matter can become active elements within an artist's creative process. Drawing from experiments with Peruvian maíz morado (purple corn), Bradford pear blooms, and other eco-derived materials, I will discuss approaches to material-based image-making that engage natural matter through processes of staining, layering and imprinting onto clear motion picture film leader and other surfaces. These experiments ask us to consider the role of materiality for artmaking as a site of exchange, where organic and found matter can evoke place, memory and folklore, opening alternative forms of visual storytelling.

Bren Vienrich-Felling (she/her) is a Peruvian-born filmmaker, educator, and multimedia producer whose work explores the intersections of ecology, third-culture identities, memory, and material image-making. Her films have screened internationally and domestically, including at the London Short Film Festival, Cosmic Rays Film Festival, Micropolitan Film Festival, Moviate Underground Film Festival, and the Buenos Aires International Film Festival. Bren holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, in addition to a Certificate in College Teaching and a Master of Fine Arts in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. She has taught filmmaking at the university level and served as a Cinematic Arts Teaching Fellow at Duke University. As a Kenan Institute for Ethics Fellow, she produced documentary work foregrounding farming practices and women in agricultural spaces. She currently serves as a Duke Arts Administration Fellow, administering hands-on arts programming through Duke Arts. Her interdisciplinary practice combines a documentary sensibility with an emphasis on curiosity, experimentation, collaboration, and craft.