Date: Friday, March 12
Time: 7:30
Admission: $5.00
Observatory presents a short film screening and talk with Catherine Chalmers, contributing artist to the current Observatory show Entomologia.

From an interview with Chalmers in Aperture, “Insects are a window into the unimaginable. Their biology and behaviors are routinely bizarre and enigmatic to us – they are refreshingly outside the human perspective. I think that our experience can be enhanced by an attempt to understand and give meaning to other life forms.”

Join us for a screening of Catherine Chalmer’s film, Safari, grand jury winner at SXSW in 2008.

“‘Safari’ is an evolutionary melodrama. Here the cockroach emerges from the primordial sea, crawling on land for the first time. Then, navigating the lush, verdant jungle alongside Chalmers’ ground-hugging camera, the cockroach encounters oversized insects, amphibians, and reptiles. When two gigantic rhinoceros beetles lock horns in aggressive combat, it is like 1950s sci-fi movies in which irradiated insects rule the earth. Yet this intimate vantage point also magnifies the striking physical beauty of these tiny creatures, inviting an appreciative reappraisal of numerous species we typically overlook or devalue as mere pests.” (Quote from SXSW)

The screening will be followed by a talk about the cast of the Safari; 20 species of insects, reptiles and amphibians she raised in her SOHO studio.

Chalmers will also screen her newest film, We Rule, focused on the incredible leaf cutter ant and filmed on location in Costa Rica.