S.1 Episode 1 // Telling Our Own Stories: Louis Massiah + Chrislyn Laurie Laurore

What would it look like to put the tools of media production into the hands of people at the margins of society? Community media activists -- with help from organizations like Scribe Video Center -- have been engaged in this work for decades. In this episode, Louis Massiah discusses how his film projects harness the power of time-based visual media to help ordinary Philadelphians craft their own narratives about their lives and their neighborhoods in relation to American history and politics.

This season was produced in connection to 2023 exhibit, "Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America", an AAMP and PAFA collaboration curated by Dejay Duckett (AAMP), Judith Tannenbaum (PAFA), Mekhala Signal (PAFA), Michael Wilson (AAMP). This exhibit brings together 20 artists to respond to the question: Is the sun rising or setting on the experiment of American democracy? The exhibit runs March 23 through Oct 8 of 2023 at the Historic Landmark Building in Philadelphia. 

For episode extras, and to learn more about the artists, hosts, and organizations involved, check out the Reckoning and Repair website: rnrphilly.com

Reckoning and Repair is part multimedia counter-archive, part laboratory, for telling stories and listening to stories in cities. Each season traces stories of resistance to (and repair from) the enduring and specific legacies of exclusion/withholding/erasure that haunt our cities. Through immersive oral histories and collaborative storytelling, student scholars, activists, and creatives illuminate the slow, difficult, yet vital work of accountability and healing in haunted worlds. The project is directed by Dr. Alissa Jordan at the Center for Experimental Ethnography at the University of Pennyslvania. ​