So humbled to announce that Passages: Artists in Solidarity with Immigrants, Refugees, and Asylum Seekers is set for release on December 5th via @westernvinyl . The first two singles, @lowtheband ’s “No More Darkness” and @bennbookmarks ’ “A Place For Us,” are out today. Passages asked artists to write/record a song in a place that feels like home. Captured through home studio set-ups, even phones, the resulting seventeen songs, in their immediacy and intimacy, invite us to meet the urgency of this moment. All labor and costs have been either donated or fundraised separately to ensure all proceeds go to @americangateways and @casamarianella , two Texas-based organizations providing no-to-low-cost legal services, food, shelter, access to health care, and other essential services for immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. If you have a couple bucks to spare, please pre-order @passagesrecord on Bandcamp (link in bio) and help us spread the word. More coming soon! Cover artwork from @reenakallat ’s Ruled Paper (red, blue, white) series, depicting contested geographies around the world.

Jem Cohen: Compass & Magnet May 10, 17, & 24 Jem will join participants for an online workshop exploring what he got right (and wrong) over four decades of independent filmmaking. He’ll offer exercises aimed at generating productive habits and spirited approaches to non-commercial art making.

Enrollment is open for Filmmaker and LVS Cofounder Rick Alverson’s March online workshop: The Algorithm and Other Cults. From Rick: What happens when we lose a common space? When we have no truly neutral ground to orient our voice and opinions? No democratic reality to refresh our fixed perceptions, to challenge our tendency for more comfort, more security, more safety, more of what we already have? We live in a hall of mirrors. As protagonists lead us through doors of our “choosing,” unencumbered by uncertainty, where our worldviews are reinforced, our prejudices justified–whose house are we in? Whose voice is speaking? Whose interests are being served? For the first two Sundays in March, in lieu of church, we will explore the value of discomfort in movies and television. We will consider the problems of unchallenged agency for an artist, the importance of opposition, and the beauty of contending with the world on its terms. Scholarships available. Link in bio. We Hope you’ll join us.

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PASSAGES is out in the world today. Artists donated all work and labor and fundraised production costs separately to ensure ALL RECORD PROCEEDS support American Gateways and Casa Marianella’s essential work in solidarity with immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. The link to donate in exchange for this beautiful record is in our bio. Human rights advocates and attorneys founded American Gateways and Casa Marianella in the mid-eighties to support refugees from Central America fleeing war and conflict fueled in part by U.S. interests, arms, military, and taxpayer dollars. The record insert features this photo from Greg Constantine’s series Seven Doors documenting immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers’ experiences navigating the cruelty of the U.S. detention system. “When I turned myself in at the border I told them I was pregnant. The people at immigration claimed that everything I told them was a lie. I told them about my brother being killed and I was afraid for my life because I was being threatened,” says the 22-year-old from El Salvador, pictured here anonymously to protect her identity. “They started laughing at me and said that everyone comes to them with the same story. I started feeling sick and I told them that I needed help, and they did nothing…The next day I was transported to Otay Mesa Detention Center and they didn’t provide me any medical assistance. Nine days later, they told me that I had just lost my baby.” PASSAGES artists are welcoming us into their homes to celebrate our human right to seek out that same comfort and safety for ourselves and our families. The songs are also an invitation to reject the racism, fear, and false narratives peddled by a system that stands to profit on division. These songs are dedicated to the staff at American Gateways, Casa Marianella, and all of the organizations in every city and town in this country—to all of you—laboring on behalf of human dignity and defending our collective human right to safe passage and home. Thank you. Let’s keep going. ⚡️🩵

Enrollment is now open for LVS’s second online arts workshop, Kirsten Johnson’s (@dickjohnsonisdead ) Not-Knowing. From November 2-23, join Kirsten in exploring uncertainty and doubt as drivers of curiosity. Talks and exercises will ask: How might artistic approaches serve as tools for the everyday? How can embracing not-knowing provide a way forward? What methods and processes can help us confront, embrace, and transform our own fears about why to make, how to make, what to make? We hope you’ll join us. Link in bio.

Registration closes at 11:59pm tomorrow (Saturday, 6-Sept) for @guy.maddin ’s Fruits of Frustration workshop. We have been so overwhelmed and humbled by the positive response to Little Valley School. Thank you for your support. More exciting news soon. Until then, we hope you’ll join us this month. Enrollment link in bio. 🩵⚡️

Friends: We’re thrilled to share Little Valley School, an arts experiment out in the Allegheny Highlands of Virginia. Our first project—affordable online workshops hosted by troublemaking artists—starts in September with @guy.maddin . If you’re feeling stuck, frustrated, desperately human, we hope you’ll join us. Follow @schoollittlevalley for info, link in bio.