What is “experimental film”? Now a mainstay at modern art museums, these non-commercial movies, typified by the work of Stan Brakhage and Jonas Mekas, were once so ‘underground’ that virtually no one knew of them. Enter Sally Dixon, who helped place these beautiful pieces of art into museum and university archives permanently. Dixon’s legacy is felt locally through her influential position at the media arts center, Film in the Cities, and collaborations with Walker Art Center.
Experimental films are now studied in universities and screened at film festivals around the world, have influenced music videos, changed how mainstream films are shot, and have even crept into the world of advertising. Fifty years ago, Sally Dixon, was inspired to seek out these films after reading Mekas’s work in the Village Voice. Her vision resulted in the Film Section at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art (CMoA). In the tradition of groundbreaking curators like Helene Kröller-Müller, Dixon was a tireless champion for experimental film artists.
Director Biography
Brigid Maher is a filmmaker and tenured associate professor of Film and Media Arts Division in the School of Communication at American University. She is the director of Adrift in the Heartland (2002), Veiled Voices (2009), and The Mama Sherpas (2015). Experimental Curator: The Sally Dixon Story (2022) is her most recent film.