IN CONVERSATION: ARTHUR JAFA AND BEN CALDWELL @ ART + PRACTICE

Arthur Jafa (American, b. 1960) is an artist, filmmaker and cinematographer. Across three decades, Jafa has developed a dynamic practice comprising films, artifacts and happenings that reference and question the universal and specific articulations of black being. Underscoring the many facets of Jafa’s practice is a recurring question: how can visual media, such as objects, static and moving images, transmit the equivalent power, beauty and alienation embedded within forms of black music in US culture?

Meet Ben Caldwell. The dreamer from the desert who spent his youth gazing at the sky and watching his grandfather project films at a local movie theater. The young artist and soldier in Vietnam that shed his gun for a camera. The student who came of age within the LA Rebellion film movement of the 1960s to 1980s and who envisioned cinema as an instrument that could heal and emancipate. The community-minded filmmaker, educator, and cultural producer who in 1984 opened KAOS Network, the intergenerational media arts hub that has helped steward Leimert Park Village’s traditions of Black artistry, fellowship, and love.