A Community Media Kit Show

This all took place 25 or more years ago. When I was new to Minneapolis and the Phillips and Powderhorn Community, where I lived, worked and hung out, I explored my home with a camera. I shot still pictures, I filmed on film. And then I bought a small video camera that I could take to all kinds of community events and make short documentaries about my community. I filmed so much video one year that I didn't have enough time to edit it into anything.

I am working on a project about this time in my life and what I learned building a kit of materials, a camera, a microphone, my bicycle, some gumption, that allowed me to document the place that I lived in and loved. This project includes archiving some of this video and editing some video that I never edited back then. It also includes a community animation component that took place at the Susan Hensel Gallery on Saturday, June 16th from 10 am to 4 pm and Sunday, June 17th from noon to 4 pm. I worked with nearly forty people who dropped by during those two days to make a big animated film on the floor that built a picture of the neighborhoods that I used to bike through with a camera, and that also talked about what those neighborhoods are today. I also showed some of my archive video for inspiration.

The animation created during this event is part of an animated short I made called "A Community Media Kit Show." Keith Porter, aka Father Time, created the final music for the film. The film premiered at MinnAnimate 7.

This project is funded by an Artist's Initiative Grant I received from the Minnesota State Arts Board.

Here is an example of what I create with the Community Media Kit of today, the Sloppy Films Animation Station:

Here are a few pieces from that archive, new edits I made of video filmed 25 or more years ago and never before edited:

35W Expansion Public Hearing 1992

Hope Community Picnic 1992

The Second Powderhorn Park Art Fair

Phillips Vigil

Cry Freedom Festival

The Name Has to Go: Super Bowl 26

Free Speech Super Bowl

See also my Community Video Archive page.

John Akre is a fiscal year 2018 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is funded, in part, by the arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the Legacy Amendment vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.