Filmmakers and Producers

Barbara McCullough

A native of New Orleans, Barbara McCullough spent most of her life in the Los Angeles area. Before documentaries, experimental film and video were her first love, She strove to “tap the spirit and richness of her community by exposing its magic, touching its textures and trampling old stereotypes while revealing the untold stories reflective of African American life.”
Her film and video projects include: “Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification”,
“Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflection on Ritual Space”, “Fragments”,
and “The World Saxophone Quartet”. Her recently completed film project, “HORACE TAPSCOTT: MUSICAL GRIOT” is a documentary on musical genius, community activist and mentor to a generation of accomplished jazz musicians, Horace Tapscott. Her works are
screened in museums and galleries nationally and internationally.

These works have been exhibited in universities, galleries, museums, festivals and programs within the United States and abroad including Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), Hammer Museum, Tate Modern, Whitney Museum, Coursitane Festival, Brooklyn Museum, BAM, American Film Institute, Muzeum Sztuki, Lodz, Poland, British Film Institute, Houston Cinema Arts Film Festival, New Orleans Film Festival, ATLarge Music Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival, African Diaspora Film Festival, Black and upcoming Essay Film Festival, London, England.

A twenty-five plus veteran of the visual effects industry, McCullough before recently returning to the Los Angeles area was professor and chair of the Visual Effects Department at Savannah College of Art and Design – SCAD.

AVAILABLE FROM TWN

Fragments of Barbara McCullough
Barbara McCullough
1980, 10 min., Color, US
This work is a montage of magic centered imagery. It contains some of the footage from Shopping Bag Spirits plus new material....

Shopping Bag Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections On Ritual Space
Barbara McCullough
1980, 60 min., Color, US
This video investigates the use of ritual in the work of artists using different media. Here ritual is defined as the creation and utilization of objects, words or tones used in a repetitive or habitual way to generate a spiritually cathartic experience. Through this catharsis, the artist is able to...

Water Ritual #1: An Urban Rite of Purification
Barbara McCullough
1979, 4 min., BW, US
An original and visionary work, this cathartic film links the present with the ancestral past. A graceful young African American woman emerges from the ruins of a crumbling building. She disrobes, and slowly approaches a sacred offering space. Fully unclothed, Milanda sits on the ground objects repr...

The World Saxophone Quartet
Barbara McCullough
1980, 5 min., Color, US
A glance at an innovative quartet of jazz saxophonists, Hamiet Bluiet, Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill, and David Murray, both in concert and conversation....


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TWN acknowledges that in New York we are on the unceded territory of the Lenni Lenape, Canarsie, Shinecock, and Munsee peoples and challenges the harm that continues to be inflicted upon Indigenous and People of Color communities here and abroad, which is why we all need to be part of the struggle for rights, equality and justice.

TWN is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Color Congress, MOSAIC, New York Community Trust, Peace Development Fund, Ford Foundation, Golden Globe Foundation, Kolibri Foundation and individual donors.