Entrepreneur Discussion

UMBC had the opportunity to have artist Barbara Hammer come and speak about her work. Barbara Hammer is a feminist film maker who is well known for her experimental style of film making. She is considered a pioneer of queer film making by many. One of her earlier films called “Dyketactics” is considered to be one of the earliest examples of a lesbian film. She has made many more films since then. She has won multiple awards for her films. She received a Guggenheim fellowship for her work on “waking up together” which was about the poet Elizabeth Bishop.

Many of her experimental films have been considered controversial. This is because most of her film subjects would include taboo topics. A majority of her films would include topics about the female body which included menstruation and lesbian sexuality. As a lesbian feminist film maker she wanted to make sure that she emphasized the societal issues that women go through such as dealing with gender roles and how society viewed women.

She has definitely made an impact in the world of experimental film. A large part of her work includes story telling from the perspective of a minority. This could be any group of people who feel as if they have been marginalized or treated unfairly by society. I think that she is trying to be the voice of the silent. She wants to stir up a conversation within our society to get people talking about societal roles.

As a film maker, I think that her impact on animation will be quite solid. She tells the stories of people who have been unfairly treated or viewed. I think this will bring a wave of new ways and styles to animate certain moments in an animation scene. The most important thing that I learned from her talk was indirectly that we as humans should be more open to different ideas and viewpoints and that we should look for different ways to solve different problems.