In conjunction with its current exhibition, “This Land: Considering the American Landscape,” The Church will show “Earth I Thank You: The Garden and Legacy of Anne Spencer,” a 37-minute documentary, on Saturday at 3 p.m.
Directed by David Udris and Michael Udris and produced by The Garden Conservancy, the film explores the historic sanctuary of Anne Spencer, a Harlem Renaissance poet, civil rights advocate, and gardener, celebrating the cultural and historical significance of the Anne Spencer House and Garden Museum in Lynchburg, Va.
“It is rare for a historic house and garden to survive intact, especially one belonging to an African American,” the conservancy said in a news release. “This historic site offers a glimpse into the life of one of the most influential figures of the Harlem Renaissance.” One of the most significant examples of a preserved African American garden, it includes a sculpture given to Spencer by W.E.B. Dubois.
Among the luminaries Spencer housed and entertained in her Virginia home were Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson, Zora Neale Hurston, Thurgood Marshall, George Washington Carver, and Martin Luther King Jr.
The screening will be followed by a conversation on preservation between Brent Leggs, the president and C.E.O. of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Kevin Young, an award-winning poet.
Tickets are $25, $20 for members.
Also in connection with “This Land,” the Sag Harbor cultural center will host a conversation between Sky Hopinka, an Indigenous visual artist and filmmaker, and Sheri Pasquarella, The Church’s executive director, on Sunday at 2 p.m.
A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Hopinka will discuss this country’s Indigenous landscape. He is represented in the exhibition by four videos that blend documentary footage with poetic narration and layered imagery.
In describing his work to Filmmaker magazine, Hopinka said, “Deconstructing language [through cinema] is a way for me to be free from the dogma of traditional storytelling and then, from there, to explore or purpose more of what Indigenous cinema has the possibility to look like.”
His films have played at many festivals, including Sundance, the Toronto International Film Festival, the Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the New York Film Festival. His work was included in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and he was a guest curator of the Biennial two years later, as well as a participant in “Cosmopolis #2” at Paris’s Centre Pompidou.
Hopinka has earned fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, where he is now an assistant professor of film.
Tickets are $10, $5 for members.
A three-day watercolor workshop with Wendy Artin is sold out.
