Observing a Process
A research-documentation project on process
How are people around me still engaging in creative action in a country where arts funding has been slashed? What does it look like to remain playful and creative as neighbors’ homes are being raided, as a local highschool graduate is deported, as a population is wiped out before our eyes and with the aid of our nation, and as the creative action outside of commercial value is positioned as valueless? Art making and creative inquiry is still happening, even if it’s been quieted.
I feel myself drawn to a series of Process Documentation. I have been drawn to peeking in on this community I have fostered (of artists, thinkers, writers, even psychoanalysts), as an observer and supporter. In an act of research, I’ve been filming the process of my fellow curious, as they create works - studying quietly via video, and for the moment, distilling still images of these connections to share.
Substack
Observing a Process 1: Observing The Tick
Substack
In summer 2023, I had the pleasure of visiting the experimental set of this latest Pete Ohs release The True Beauty of Being Bitten by a Tick to document the group’s filmmaking process. The filmmaker says time and again - it’s about process over the product. I’ve often thought of these films (+ process) as kids’ movies for adults. Something led by play, joy, and the collaboration of friendship and shared ideals. It’s a process I know well, having made movies with Pete early in both our careers, and I feel a massive joy seeing the progression and aggressive dedication of this ethos as time and work continue.
The result, a research photo series of a day in the process of a film by Pete Ohs, with Jeremy O. Harris, Zoë Chao, Callie Hernandez, James Cusati-Moyer
Movies are positioned as glamorous in this world, but this group of people came together through their reasons for making; And the result, as a group, they made a wonderfully beautiful, playful, fun film.
These photographs are from video document of the process of making by this group of people.
“The True Beauty of Being Bitten By A Tick” (2025)
SXSW 2025