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W05 · 2022 — ongoing · Experimental short films

Experimental
short films.

Moving image + still + archival audio AV01 — AV05 @harveycastro
01 — On the work

Experimental shorts in which moving images are collaged with stills and layered with historical audio. Each film is a discrete, autonomous work — and each has also been shown inside the exhibitions, alongside the cyanotypes and sublimations they share material with.

The films extend the documentary encounter into time. Where the cyanotype holds the moment in place and the sublimation binds it to cloth, the films carry it forward as duration — the wind, the voice, the procession, the testimony. The field recording, the cyanotype, and the archival voice migrate into a single moving artifact.

02 — Films

Five shorts,
five encounters.

Do Not Come — Maya highlands after Hurricane Eta, Queja landslide — film
AV01 · Experimental short · 2022

Do Not Come.

Moving images of the Maya highlands after Hurricane Eta — the landslide at Queja, the months of ceremony and recovery. The audio echoes as the textiles do: the voices of Kamala Harris and Donald Trump (literal audio echo effect) woven against a newscast about Queja, an indigenous leader at a protest in Guatemala City, and a migrant deported with his family from McAllen, Texas, interviewed at the El Ceibo border crossing in Guatemala. Also shown in Esa sombra eres tú, room E4 (Lluvia de sangre).

Los Olvidados — Puerto Rico — film
AV02 · Experimental short · 2022

Los Olvidados — Puerto Rico.

The F.E.M.A.-tarp-roofed houses that remained after Hurricane María — Don Ángel González and after. A posthumous homage in moving image. Also shown in Esa sombra eres tú, room E3 (Para acá también vive gente).

Lo que dicen esas paredes — film
AV03 · Experimental short · 2022 · Cadence VPF 2023

Lo que dicen esas paredes.

A collaboration with Zapotec poet Irma Pineda (narrating her poem La Pared in Zapotec and Spanish) and translator Wendy Call (narrating the English, from In the Belly of Night and Other Poems). Screened at the Cadence Video Poetry Festival, April 2023. Also shown in Esa sombra eres tú, room E1.

Singularidad — water-surface debris, India and Oakland
AV04 · Experimental short · 2023

Singularidad.

Water surfaces from India and Oakland — debris, sediment, decay — collapsed into a single material condition. Two geographies, one polluted shore. Shown within Cuerpo Substancia Extendida, MMACJS, September 2023.

Artemisa Blues — cyanotype artist book, single strip of cotton
AV05 · Artist book documentation · 2022

Artemisa Blues.

A cyanotype artist book documenting a cigar roller in Artemisa, Cuba — four scenes printed on a single strip of cotton, rolled inside a Romeo y Julieta cigar tube and bound by a rice paper ring stamped with the studio's Chinese chop. The documentation video runs alongside the films; the object itself travels separately. View the artist book →

03 — Material and process
Source

Field stills, moving footage, and archival audio gathered alongside the cyanotype and sublimation work. The film does not illustrate the still works — it carries the same encounter into duration.

Composition

Layered editing: stills hold, motion enters, audio shifts the register. The cuts follow the rhythm of the encounter rather than the conventions of documentary cinema.

Format

Each film exists as discrete moving image — available as a screening file for festivals and programming, as a continuous installation loop alongside the related still works, or as a stand-alone projection piece. Editions are not numbered; each presentation is configured to its venue.

Distribution

Public on @harveycastro; institutional and screening-license inquiries handled directly through the studio.

For institutions & curators
Films — screening licenses, festival submissions, installation loops, and editorial coverage handled directly through the studio.