Double Tide documents the work of Jen Casad, a clam digger working in the mudflats of coastal Maine. Expanding the focus of films that Lockhart had recently made—Lunch Break (2008) and Exit (2008)—the film offers a portrait of a relatively unseen and singular form of labour. Filmed on the rare occasion in which low tide occurs twice within daylight hours—once at dawn and once at dusk—and comprising only two stationary shots that each last approximately 45 minutes, Double Tide focuses on Casad as she goes about her work, defined as it is by the most elemental forces of nature.
Writing in the New York Times in 2010, Jeanette Catsoulis said of the film, ‘Continuing Ms. Lockhart’s fascination with the relationship between time and labor, “Double Tide” is an atavistic harmony of human and planetary motion. Near the end a lone waterfowl picks along the shoreline, as dependent as any clam digger on the turning of the tides.’
Sharon Lockhart is an American artist whose work considers social subjects primarily through motion film and still photography, often engaging with communities to create work as part of long-term projects. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1991 and her MFA from Art Center College of Design in 1993. She has been a Radcliffe fellow, a Guggenheim fellow, and a Rockefeller fellow. Her films and photographic work have been widely exhibited at international film festivals and in museums, cultural institutions, and galleries around the world. She was an associate professor at the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Fine Arts, resigning from the school in August 2015 in response to the continued administrative turmoil at Roski to take a position at the California Institute for the Arts. Lockhart lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
2009, US
Directed by Sharon Lockhart
99 mins
16 mm film transferred to HD
SDH subtitles available
7 – 16 January: Available to watch online from our website
Tickets: FREE