Filmmaker, Educator and Renowned International Artist Barbara McCullough
Barbara McCullough, Director
New Orleans-born filmmaker Barbara McCullough gives us Horace Tapscott: Musical Griot, a documentary which looks into the life the once blacklisted musical genius Horace Tapscott—consummate musician, community activist, and mentor to generations of accomplished young jazz artists.
McCullough, who spent most of her life in the Los Angeles area, notes experimental film and video as her first loves, always striving to “tap the spirit and richness of her community by exposing its magic, touching its textures, trampling old stereotypes, and revealing untold stories of African American life.”
Her film and video projects include:
Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification — a quest for Black female identity through exploration of spiritual and cultural identity to dispel societal putrefaction.
Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflection on Ritual Space (SBS) — a look at why African American artists incorporate some form of ritual in their work. Artist include: David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Betye Saar, Houston Conwill, Ojenke, K. Curtis Lyle and Kenneth Severin.
Fragments — a compilation and condensation of work included and not included in SBS.
World Saxophone Quartet — a short conversation with the World Saxophone Quartet whose members comment on their work and motivation.
Grants for her work include an Avant-Garde Masters Grant for experimental film from the National Film Preservation Film Foundation for restoration by the UCLA Film and Television Archives of her film Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification. Other grants were awarded by Brody Arts Fund, the Black Programming Consortium-Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Cultural Affairs of the City of Los Angeles, Western States Black Research Foundation and the National Endowments for the Arts.
Her work is screened nationally and internationally at galleries and museums. A twenty plus years veteran of the visual effects industry, Ms. McCullough has also served as Chair and Professor of visual effects at the Savannah Collage of Art and Design.
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More about renowned storyteller and scholar McCullough at BarbaraMcCullough.com.