The First Video • Mailing Postcards! • The Second Video • The Third Video • Meeting Our Les Lias Pen Pals! • Exhibition, Screening, and Celebration • LILANGELES Recap

Christine Yerie Lee, based in Los Angeles, is a visual artist working in video, performance, drawing, and sculpture. Raised in Memphis, Tennesse to South Korean immigrant parents, her work often centers the experience of identity formation and performativity. She explores the body as a site for resistance to dominant power structures, imagining new futures. Christine's work is a collaboration of fantasy and reality; she is a powerful storyteller, with a background in fashion design. The artist has received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has also taught video art courses at a multitude of institutions.

Christine brings all of her experiences to HOLA Visual Arts, leading an incredible residency project that goes international. Stay tuned for her project reveal – a beautifully unique cultural exchange in creative form.

Christine's artist residency project is a video letter exchange, connecting HOLA youth with students at the Jean-Cocteau Cultural Center in Les Lilas, a suburb of Paris, France.

This project named Lilangeles provides HOLA teens with the opportunity to communicate with teens at the Jean-Cocteau Cultural Center in Les Lilas through video letters shot with their mobile phones. It is a back-and-forth flow of sending and receiving videos – the students responding to each other. Through Christine's collaboration with Nelson Bourrec Carter, the artist in residence leading the students in Les Lilas, this new dialogue emerges. Born in Paris, Nelson is a Franco-African-American artist and director skilled in film, photography, and installation. At the Jean-Cocteau Cultural Center, where Nelson's artist residency is held, there is a variety of programming, from exhibitions to concerts to programs for Les Lilas youth. The Youth Service and The Théâtre du Grade Chasse are also helping with this project, coordinating with the youth and developing the educational curriculum around film and image

With weeks of teaching and facilitating filmmaking, exhibition-building, language translation, video editing, and mailing overseas, these teaching artists keep this letter correspondence full of joy and community-building. They teach our students that visual art is a powerful way to connect with people, across cultural differences, around the world.

Read more about Christine Yerie Lee here: https://www.christineyerielee.com/ 

Read more about the Berman Public Art Residency here: https://www.heartofla.org/blog-1/tag/The+Berman+Residency

More on Nelson: http://www.nelsonbcarter.com/ 

More on the Jean-Cocteau Cultural Center: https://uk.tourisme93.com/centre-culturel-jean-cocteau.html 

Building LILANGELES:

The First Video

In April, Christine introduced the video letter project to our HOLA teens and showed them the first video letter sent to them from the Les Lilas students! The first video letter received was about showcasing their environment – what is daily life like in Les Lilas? What does their world look like and what are some of their personal narratives?

The Les Lilas students introduced themselves through a video letter focused on filming their surroundings and the way they interact within them. They spoke in French and had English captions, narrating stories and speaking to each other.

In response, with the guidance of Christine, HOLA students filmed their favorite places in the MacArthur neighborhood in groups. With narration and taking turns filming each other, the students were able to capture the daily elements of their world.

At the end of the video letter, they spoke about memories they hold in their favorite places and posed questions to their Les Lilas penpals. With Christine's expertise in organizing the footage and audio through video editing, HOLA's first video letter was ready to send to Paris.

Building LILANGELES:

Mailing Postcards!

In the first week of HOLA's summer session, students also made postcards, writing messages to send to our Les Lilas penpals. These postcards were screenshots of our video letters thus far. The Les Lilas students also wrote on postcards to send to us, with stills from their video letters! A written exchange, a connection across languages....

Building LILANGELES:

The Second Video

In May, HOLA students watched the first edited video letter they filmed last month, the one that was sent to their Les Lilas pen pals. After celebrating their first completed video message, they watched the second video letter from Paris.

In this letter, the Les Lilas students answered the question posed by HOLA students in the first video. They also included footage that they filmed of each other, joking, laughing, and speaking in English to our HOLA students. It was a joyful, yet inquisitive correspondence. The Les Lilas students ended their film with questions for our Los Angeles students.

To respond, HOLA students filmed their second video letter, answering their questions. Then, in pairs, they interviewed each other with prompts created by Christine – what are your hobbies? What is your favorite song?

Experimenting with a variety of shots in MacArthur Park, students were tasked with filming fragments of each other. What does it mean to construct an intimate portrait of your partner through video clips? How do you consider space, light, and gesture?

Building LILANGELES:

The Third Video

Our Environment:

HOLA students begin filming their third video letter to Les Lilas students, exploring their neighborhood through the lens of their phone camera.

In the first week of the summer session, the students focused on defining their space and environment, exploring different kinds of shots. After discussing the detailed steps of video production and viewing various examples of composition and framing techniques with Christine, they set off to try it themselves!

With the instruction of guest artist, Alexeis Reyes, students shot scenes around Lafayette Park, considering the kinds of shots they took and their camera movement. They described their relationships with the park in the way they framed the features of their environment.

Thank you Alexeis Reyes for your guidance to our students!

More on Alexeis Reyes: https://alexeisreyes.com/ 

Glimpses of the Self:

HOLA students continue filming their 3rd video letter, using interviews to create a portrait of themselves.

In week two of the summer session, the HOLA students explored portraiture through interviews. At Lafayette Park, they interview one another using a variety of shots taught to them: full shots, mediums shots, panning shots, close-up shots, etc. The students consider different angles when filming each other – two cameras must be filming the interviewee at all times. They ask each other questions after brief introductions. What is something you love but most people hate? What is the most recent dream you can remember? What is a dream or aspiration you have for the future?

Students were told to bring objects from home that are meaningful to them. Some students spoke about the object they chose and why it was important to them.

Collective Dreaming:

In continuation of the third letter, students at HOLA create narratives in a shadow puppetry workshop led by guest artist, Natalie Ferguson and guest videographer, Calvin Waterman.

It's the third week of Christine's artist residency project and students are devoted to filming the third video letter with even more creativity. With guest artist, Natalie Ferguson, and guest videographer, Calvin Waterman, students create shadow puppet narratives to be filmed and edited into their video letter.

First, the students were asked to envision an avatar, drawing and conceptualizing them through a worksheet. Then, they physically actualize their avatars, drawing and cutting them out on black paper. They also attach other materials to incorporate color.

With these handheld characters, our students insert them into stories, imagining whole worlds where their characters live and interact. They find audio to pair with their narratives, expressing their dreams and personality through the audio-visual realms of shadow puppetry.

With the guidance of Natalie, in small groups, the students bring their shadow puppets to life under the projector, narrating through voiceover along the way. Calvin aids in capturing their stories by filming the projector.

The students dreamed beautiful worlds, showcasing themselves further and inviting our Les Lilas penpals to partake in their imagined adventures.

Thank you Natalie and Calvin for all of your guidance and expertise during this session!

About Natalie Ferguson: https://www.nataliejferguson.com/ 

About Calvin Waterman: https://violetoffice.com/

Wrapping Up:

The students now wrap up their third video letter to Les Lilas, filming MacArthur Park neighborhood clips.

Week Five was the final week of the LILANGELES project and it was time to wrap up the final pieces of HOLA's third video letter. Christine took the students to MacArthur Park to film more environmental neighborhood shots.

Students walked around, utilizing what they'd been taught during the past few weeks to take their last video clips for the Les Lilas correspondence. They took shots of such beautiful scenes!

Building LILANGELES:

Meeting Our Les Lias Pen Pals!

HOLA youth meet their Paris peers live via Zoom!

HOLA teens had the wonderful opportunity to meet the Les Lilas teens they have been in conversation with through film. Over Zoom, our students logged into Zoom in small groups, seeing their penpals face to face.

With some translation between French and English, the students were able to bridge a virtual connection in real-time. They asked and answered questions amongst each other, remaining curious and kind. There were lots of laughs and smiles!

After so much adrenaline and excitement from meeting the Les Lilas students, HOLA students reviewed Christine's first round of edits of their third video letter in the making. They also worked on title cards for the video letter – words and designs drawn to include in the video letter credits and intro!

A title card made by one of our HOLA students, Joey! It includes everyone's shadow puppet character. :)

Building LILANGELES:

Exhibition, Screening, and Celebration

An exhibition about the Li.LA.s project was held at the Jean Cocteau Cultural Center from July 16 - August 19, 2023. Check out the flyer and some of the pictures of the exhibition's opening below!

For More Exhibition Info: https://www.ville-leslilas.fr/centreculturel/154-273-158/residences/li-la-s 

Link to Center Website: https://www.ville-leslilas.fr/centreculturel/ 

Final Screening & Celebration!

HOLA students celebrate the completion of the third video letter and the entire project with a screening party of all video letters.

As Week Five was the final week of programming, Christine's residency project was on its way to a close, with the entirety of the footage to wrap up HOLA's third video letter. What better way to close out such an amazing pen pal journey than with a celebratory screening party?

On the last day of the project, HOLA students came together to watch the collective of all videos exchanged during the last few months – all edited letters from Les Lilas and from HOLA, including our third video letter that was almost entirely edited. They enjoyed pizza and a variety of snacks, including popcorn. They shared their final thoughts on the project and took a class selfie. We did it!

Thank you Christine for leading such a wonderful, rewarding artist residency here at HOLA and facilitating a connection between our world and a world in Les Lilas.

LILANGELES Recap

A video entry into the LILANGELES project, now complete. See other blog posts for all residency details.