Amy Jenkins

Hyoungjin Kim: The first question is, how did you start your career as a filmmaker? And what was your motivation?

Amy Jenkins: I actually got into filmmaking, what I would say is, kind of later in life. I started out as a photographer, I got my master's degree in photography, at School of Visual Arts in New York.

My earliest works used photography, combining sculpture with video to make photographs, what I called my “Fairytale Series”, that included television and objects. But the final artwork was always a photograph.

Then, because I was using the still image from the video, the natural progression was to start using video in a video installation setting. So I began projecting video with objects, and doing time based mediums instead of photography. Much of that work was a continuation of similar themes that I was using in my work about fantasy, desire, gender, and family relationships.

So for about 20 or 25 years, I did what I would call video installation, because I would show it in galleries. It was three dimensional so you would walk through the environment of video and sculpture combined.

Then what I would say kind of later in life, meaning the last 10 years or so, I began making films. I distinguish my filmmaking separately from my video installation because I feel like it's a different kind of audience. You have to sit down and watch it for a duration, and it's usually shown in the theater.

So it's a very different kind of audience and approach from my video installation. But again, I think the themes that I've worked on from my 20s when I was doing photography up to now in my 50s, the themes have been consistent, but the mediums have changed.

HK : I saw your website and in your biography, and it says you're making a film that combines video, sculpture, performance, ,writing, and audio to create an immersive environment and create a poetic space that mimics thoughts and memories. I'm wondering what preparation do you need to make this film?

AJ : Let's get our terminology. That work is my video installation work, which I still am making but not showing as much.

The video installation is made in my studio. So the idea is with the video installation, it uses performance. Sometimes it's my own performance or my family performing, but it is scripted. The ideas and how they're going to evolve are planned ahead of time and written out. And the sculpture is built to coincide and marry with the video.

My film is more towards documentary and uses real-life stories. Some of my new films continue stories with my family, about gender, and about mortality. But they are done in a documentary format. So it's not scripted.

HK: Among the films you made, ​Ebb, Flow, From The Same Water​ shows the bodies of women and men. What inspiration did you get when you made these movies?

AJ: Water is a theme that's in a lot of my work. Water is something that we all come from, the amniotic fluid in the belly when the baby is a fetus. It’s all over the world and is an element like earth, fire, & air.

There's three pieces that have a certain kind of similarity.

1) ​Ebb​ is a piece in the bathtub with the woman who's menstruating and then absorbing all the blood back into her body. I was thinking a lot about power and taking back our blood and being fortified by it. That's why the blood is in reverse and goes into her body.

2) ​Flow​ is a companion piece to Ebb, which I made about 10 years later and it's about pregnancy. Again, I was thinking about the amniotic fluid, and how the baby is in the belly in the water, but then I'm in the water in the tub.

3) ​From the Same Water​ is a reference to the amniotic fluid also. The man is my brother, and the woman is me. It's about the two of us being from the same mother and the water being like the mother.

It's also about male and female. Merging male and female into one. Male and female come from the same water and ultimately are the same entity.

HK: The film Ebb is the most interesting to me. What message do you want to send to people through this film Ebb?

AJ: (Ms. Amy providing more details about Ebb that has been touched a little bit from the previous question)

It's about the process of being a female and fertility. Because water again is also about fertility. And bleeding every month is a part of our fertility.

But I also wanted to empower the woman in 1) owning her blood 2) and taking back her blood 3) and having it nourish her body 4) and strengthen her.

So it's not always just about giving it away and losing your blood each month itself. It can be about empowerment of taking it back.

HK: My class is named Feminist Production. So what do you think about the word ​Experimental​ and Feminist?​

AJ: I think about this a lot. Because it's the way I would describe myself, I would say, I'm an experimental feminist as an artist.

For me, experimental means that there's no rules or boundaries, that you can work outside of limitations, and that any idea is okay.

If you apply it to art production, there's no pre-conscribed boundaries to what you're creating and it has a spirit of freedom.

There's all different ways of describing feminist. I believe that in the most basic sense, it's somebody who feels that all beings are created equally. Anybody can be a feminist, male, female, transgender, non binary. On the most basic level, being a feminist is feeling that all genders are created equally, and share in their power.

HK: What is your final goal as a filmmaker?

AJ: I think the most important thing of being an artist is to feel free to make what you want and to be supported in that vision.

It's difficult to be an artist. A lot of times you don't make any money and you put a lot of time and effort into it. You have to fight hard to have your work seen.

If I were to talk about my hopes, or dreams, or goals, those would be to continue to make the work that I want to make, have it supported, and have it sought after to be seen.

So to find a way through the business side of art, because there's always two components, there's the making, and then there's the business.

The business can be very draining, and time consuming. Writing grants, trying to get funding for ideas, trying to get galleries, or trying to get theaters to show the work. I would like to see more for myself, but for all art makers, to see a more fair process in allowing people to get funding and get their work seen.

In America, it can be very limiting because there's very little government funding for art. Funding is much more from private foundations so it's very exclusive. Other countries, Europe, etc, have more opportunities and funding for artists.

I would love to see more money and opportunities being shared with artists.