HISTORY LOST AND FOUND: SPELUNKING THROUGH TIME
Ages 16-29
Fall 2021, Online
Before history is written up in books and memorialized on monuments, it happens in streets, churches, homes, even stadiums. Accordingly, fellows will spend most of their time out in the field, exploring the city. Not all of Baltimore’s historical sites are celebrated; some are hidden under new façades; some are abandoned, weed-choked. In this workshop student fellows will “excavate” the relics of the city’s past, visiting places like the first African American run hospital, now shuttered and vacant; the lost home of Frederick Douglas, now an unmarked new townhome; and what was once known as “the world’s outdoor insane asylum,” now an open field. Fellows will collect footage of the sites, recording first impressions, then follow up with research, learning to use land records and archived news clippings to reconstruct the former “lives” of the locations. They’ll put together a short, collaborative film on each site, exploring the before and after. Fellows will learn to shoot, edit, and repurpose their own shots. Their work will be shared at a virtual screening and on the program website. Limited to 8 student fellows.
Charles Cohen's recent documentary films include Riding Wild, which follows a group of BMXers into Baltimore's urban wilderness, and The Crooked Tune, an Old Time Fiddler in a Modern World. He holds an MFA in Film and Digital Media from American University and has written for The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, The Washington Post, and Baltimore City Paper.
Chuofan Yu is an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying molecular and cellular biology with a personal interest in visual arts. He is a program assistant for Baltimore Youth Film Arts.
