The Treasury of Human Inheritance

The Treasury of Human Inheritance, directed by Alexis Kyle Mitchell, is a poetic film about the experience of living with and alongside disease and disability. Tracing loops, echoes and repetitions across the physical and spiritual realms, The Treasury combines documentation of family home movie footage; somatic and religious rituals for death and life after death; abandoned urban architectures teeming with natural growth; celluloid film hand-processed in genetic material; and an analogue synther soundtrack that mimics inheritance patterns of genetic disease. In essence, this is a film about a family–but, more than that, it is a film made from the everyday patterns we embody in order to live through and with one another.

The screening will be followed by an in-person conversation between Mitchell and the film’s producer Mason Leaver-Yap during which the artist will reflect on her approach to the entangled legacies of family and identity, practices of fluid consent, knowledge and the divine, and discuss her own techniques of making a hand-processed film with and about genetic material.

This film will be presented at Paradise Theatre in partnership with The Vega Foundation. The film is a precursor to a newly commissioned audio-visual performance titled The Treasury of Human Inheritance (Circuits) by Mitchell and collaborator Luke Fowler, which will take place on Saturday, June 22nd at MOCA Toronto.

Members at the Enthusiast level and above are eligible to utilize their Free Event benefit for this artist talk.