- Spoken Word
- Informative
The 29 photographs that make up Barbara Hammer's 2017 exhibition "Truant: Photographs, 1970 – 1979" at Company Gallery in New York City, have often been described as documentation of utopic, or, in the case of an essay by the artist A.L. Steiner for the exhibition's accompanying catalogue, 'heterotopic'—a world within a world, othered.
In this chapter of New Friend, we trace Barbara Hammer's artistic and personal trajectory through the waning thrust of 20th century white North American utopian/heterotopian ideals, from the back-to-the-land movement to lesbian feminism, and towards Hornby Island—an island so often associated with, and troubled by utopian aspirations.
New Friend is a five-part radio documentary exploring the context behind a series of photographs taken by the artist and experimental filmmaker, Barbara Hammer. The photographs were taken over one weekend in August 1973, on Hornby Island, Ja-Dai-Aich.
Thank you to all of those who shared their stories, memories, and voices for the purposes of this project.
In this chapter, you heard the following voices (in order of appearance):
Nym Hughes
Barbara Hammer
Derek Anderson
Scott Watson
Judith Lawrence
Clair Cronia
Persimmon Blackbridge
Elaine Savoie
Bonita Wexler
Annie Martin
The rocks, plants, trees, wind, and water of Hornby Island Ja-Dai-Aich.
Barbara Hammer's diary entries are voiced by Martha Ross.
Excerpts from the following sources can also be heard within this chapter, whenever possible with permission from the author/copyright holder, and otherwise under Fair Use:
Nym Hughes reading from A.L. Steiner's essay in Truant: Photographs, 1970-1979 (Capricious, 2017).
Michel Foucault, "Les Heterotopies", France culture, December 7 and 11, 1966, produced by Robert Valette.
"An Oral History with Barbara Hammer", interviewed by Svetlana Kitto, recorded for the Smithsonian Archives of American Art, 2018
"Lesbian Sisters: Getting Together in the Lesbian Community", July 1973, Courtesy of Radio Pacifica.
Beth Elliot, "Good Time", 1976 (Buried Treasure, 2005).
Kathy Fire, "City on Fire", 1978 (Songs of Fire: Songs of a Lesbian Anarchist by Kathy Fire, 1978).
Barbara Hammer, recordings at UCLA West Coast Lesbian Conference, April 1973 (from the recording "Kate Millett, Audre Lorde, UCLA First Lesbian Conference_part of "X" soundtrack, 1973", Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Yale University).
Barbara Hammer, "Sisters", 1974.
Barbara Hammer, "Tenderfictions", 1996.
Good Morning America, Hornby Island report.
Mixing and Mastering by Robert Steenkamer.
Warmest thanks, in addition, for their help in the making of this project:
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University
Barbara Hammer Estate
Hornby Island Community Archives
Cashmere Radio, Berlin
96.5 CHFR Hornby Island Community Radio
KOW, Berlin
Company Gallery, New York City
Rebecca Dunne
Emma Walter
Emily Harrison
All beings, human and more-than-human, of Hornby Island, Ja-Dai-Aich, and its surrounding waters—where I am a part-time, uninvited guest on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral territory of the K'ómoks First Nation.
New Friend is generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
by Bitsy Knox (2024).
