Beyond the Mountains: Haiti Disaster Relief

  • “There is a saying: Beyond the Mountains, More Mountains. We know there is no gold beyond the next hill. We fear there is no more hope in tomorrow than there was in yesterday. But there is also the cool, salty sea, the sweetness of your neighbor who understands you because his life is just like yours, the ancestors who wish you well, and always, above all, the children.”
    “Beyond the Mountains, More Mountains”  is a traditional Haitian expression, and world-view.
    In 1975 Philip Mallory Jones and Gunilla Mallory Jones joined Fred Mangones in his native Haiti for a journey around the island and into the culture, history and ethos its people.
    Beyond the Mountains, More Mountains weaves verite analogue video, photography, and video post-production in a tapestry of visual impressions, music and voices. It was also part of a multi-media gallery installation at Ithaca Video Projects. – PMJ
    This video was created using “Videomation”, a technology developed by Phillip Mallory Jones  in the early 1970’s. Videomation “synthesises electronic, film and graphic images into a multi-level composite image. This technique, which is analogous to the basic characteristics of African drumming and singing, is being used in film/tape on black music”. (Description, from Ithaca Video Project Projections 1974-1976 document)
    About the artist:
    Philip Mallory Jones’ career in media art and education spans more than fifty years. His work has been exhibited in North America, Central America, the Caribbean, Europe, West Africa, South Pacific, Japan, Malasia and India.
    Mr. Jones’ work has been supported by The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, The American Film Institute, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The National Black Programming Consortium, among others.
    Mr. Jones has held faculty positions at several institutions, including the Batza Distinguished Scholar in Art and Art History, at Colgate University, and multi-year Resident Artist posts at the Institute for Studies in the Arts, Arizona State University, and The Aesthetic Technologies Lab, Ohio University.
    Mr. Jones was co-founder and Director of Ithaca Video Projects (1972-1985), and Director of the Annual Ithaca Video Festival (1974-1984).
    Mr. Jones’ print publications include Lissen Here! with Dorothy Mallory Jones (2005); Dateline: Bronzeville, with Donald Brooks Jones (2015); and Bronzeville Etudes & Riffs (2019).
    His current work-in-progress include:
    Time Machine: Bronzeville Between the World Wars
    Tales of speculative fiction in Virtual Reality

    Read an oral history interview with Philip Mallory Jones and Tyler Maxin of Experimental Arts Intermix here

    About the videotape:
    This recording comes from a 1/4″ open reel video tape in the VSW Video collection. It was recently digitized through a Recordings at Risk grant from the Council of Library and Information Resources (CLIR) and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

     

  • This video is being made available by the artist from September 3-17, 2021 to support the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund. Please consider making a donation today.

    Click HERE to donate directly through the Haiti Emergency Relief Fund website.