Discipline: Film/Video – animation

Melissa “Mel” Friedling

Discipline: Film/Video – animation
Region: Brooklyn, NY
MacDowell Fellowships: 2023

Melissa “Mel” Friedling is a media artist, scholar, and educator teaching at The New School who is interested in the relational jumble of human and more-than-human matter. Much of her work begins with found or ‘happened upon’ artifacts that prompt an excavation of the marginalized and sometimes metaphysical narratives contained within them.

At MacDowell, Friedling created new animations on 16mm that she hand processed in the Nef darkroom for her in-progress feature film, Midwood Movie. She also worked on the audio textures for the film using sounds created by the composer, Alexis Cuadrado. The is being supported by NYSCA and UnionDocs Center for Documentary Arts. Friedling also began a new work while in residence that combined hand-made ceramics installed in the woods around Nef studio with augmented reality and shot on analog film.

Studios

Nef

Melissa “Mel” Friedling worked in the Nef studio.

Nef Studio, the first entirely new studio built after 1937, was donated by esteemed photographer, explorer, author, and MacDowell Fellow Evelyn Steffanson Nef in 1992. Endowed funds for the studio’s maintenance in perpetuity and an annual Fellowship for photographers were given in addition to funds for construction. Mrs. Nef said she had known about MacDowell all her…

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