The Giverny Document (Single Channel)

Available 22–28 | 2 | 2021

Filmed on location in Harlem and in Monet’s historic gardens in Giverny, this multi-textured cinematic poem meditates on the bodily integrity and creative virtuosity of black women.

From the streets of present-day Harlem to Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny, the film asks what it is to live in the body of a black woman, bearing the weight not only of a racist past and present, but of a history of objectifying artistic representation. By putting her own body on screen − and on the line − artist Ja’Tovia M. Gary channels vulnerability, pain, and anger while celebrating the potential to move forward.