A 6-minute haunting made of stolen moments and library due dates.
For Ashes, Tom Kalin photographed thousands of high resolution still images and "stitched" them into a moving image. While borrowing library books for research on another project, Kalin discovered, glued to the endpapers, ordinary "due date" ledgers stamped with dates spanning three decades. Inspired by these tiny ledgers—like skin or palimpsests that recorded an analogue history, an accumulation of many gestures—Kalin combines quotidian pictures snatched from his daily life with an evocative musical track by ongoing collaborator Doveman (Thomas Bartlett). The film layers dates and moments from Kalin's personal world with the public and global history of AIDS. Commissioned by Visual AIDS in 2014 as part of ALTERNATE ENDINGS, a program of seven videos that bring together charged moments and personal memories amidst the public history of HIV/AIDS.
Direction
Thousands of stills stitched into breathing, aching motion.
Sound
Doveman's score turns domestic images into elegy.
Editing
Due date ledgers as palimpsest—time made visceral.
Director
Tom Kalin
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Visual AIDS's ALTERNATE ENDINGS commissioned seven artists to mark 25 years of AIDS activism, rejecting singular narratives for plural, messy memory.
Kalin's 'stitched' technique mirrors how queer memory itself works: fragmented, collaborative, held together by force of will.
US
