FULLY AWAKE: DOC FILM SCREENING

Join Enough Pie Executive Director and documentary filmmaker, Cathryn Davis Zommer, for the screening of FULLY AWAKE (2008), a one-hour documentary film exploring Black Mountain College (1933-1957), an experimental college in Western NC often heralded as the birthplace of the American avant garde.

Hidden in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Black Mountain College (1933 - 1957) was an influential experiment in education that inspired and shaped twentieth century American art. Fully Awake: Black Mountain College is a documentary film that explores the college’s progressive pedagogy and radical approach to arts education. Highly democratic and faculty-owned, the school promoted practical responsibilities and the creative arts as equally important components to intellectual development.

Following the screening, join a discussion about progressive education and community participation. ALL ARE WELCOME.

WHEN and WHERE:
Wednesday, October 12 @ 7:00pm

American College of the Building Arts
649 Meeting Street
Charleston, SC 29403

ABOUT THE FILM:
Hidden in the mountains of Western North Carolina, Black Mountain College (1933–1957) was an influential experiment in education that inspired and shaped twentieth century American art. Created as an experiment of “education in a democracy,” the central idea was that the creative arts and practical responsibilities are equal in importance to the development of the intellect. The emphasis was that learning and living are intimately connected.

Highly democratic and faculty-owned, the school promoted educational of the whole person: head, heart, and hand. Practical responsibilities and the creative arts were viewed as equally important components to intellectual development. During WWII, Black Mountain College was a haven for refugee European artists such as Josef and Anni Albers who arrived from the Bauhaus in Germany. In the socially conservative 1940s and 50s, the college also became a refuge for the American avant–garde, (Franz Kline, John Cage, Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham, Robert Creeley, Jacob Lawrence, Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, and M.C. Richards). FULLY AWAKE explores how the confluence of this diverse community came together to create a unique educational model.

Fully Awake stands as a valuable resource, a record of a radical experiment that succeeded brilliantly for almost a quarter century, and as affirmation of the potential of educational institutions to profoundly impact lives and springload creative development.” – Amy White, Independent Weekly

HOSTED BY: ENOUGH PIE, AMERICAN COLLEGE OF THE BUILDING ARTS