ABOUT THE INSTALLATION

Present Absence is a five-channel video installation that individualizes and personalizes the lives of 5 people killed by Chicago Police. These stories, generated from long-form interviews with family members, invite viewers to experience those murdered not as closed cases or dry statistics, as sensational media stories or police cover-up tales – but as unique human beings who made life-changing contributions to others, who are loved and mourned.

For every story, five family members are in virtual conversation, each featured in their own screen to offer their piece of the completed picture. Present Absence uses multichannel storytelling in an intimate living room setting to facilitate deep listening and proffer paths to radical empathy.

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ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Salome Chasnoff is a filmmaker and installation artist who is inspired by the enlightening, humanizing and healing capacities of storytelling. For 3 decades, she has maintained a collaborative social practice and exhibition career embracing and interrogating the indivisibility of the making of art and the making of relationship. Her installations aspire to create sacred spaces for community healing.

Meredith Zielke is a filmmaker and cinematographer. She works mainly in experimental documentary features and large-scale video installation. Her films have showed in numerous national and international festivals, conferences, galleries, educational institutions and community centers.