The University community can get a sneak peak at the latest film project from Laura Harrison, UST adjunct professor of communication and award-winning documentarian. A 30-minute preview of Ant Farm 1969-71: Early Underground Adventures with Space, Land and Time will be shown at 1 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 11. just around the corner from campus at the Aurora Library, 1524 Sul Ross.

According to the Aurora Library Web site, the film, currently screening at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, is the first film to delve into the work of the renegade 1970s art/architecture collective Ant Farm, best known for its iconic land-art piece Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, TX. Radical architects, video pioneers, and mordantly funny cultural commentators, the Ant Farmers created a body of deeply subversive multidisciplinary work that questioned everything by posing a set of creative and comedic alternatives. Incorporating archival video, new footage shot over the past eight years and computer animation based on period architectural sketches, this multi-layered film considers Ant Farm's significance in today's neo-conformist culture and its impact on the artists and designers of the future.

Harrison’s impressive body of work includes Secret People (2000) - a chronicle of the past and present of leprosy in America – that was broadcast nationally on PBS’ Independent Lens series and won a silver medal for Best Feature Documentary at the SXSW Film Festival. Thurmond, W. Va (1995) - a portrait of a “ghost town in the making”- received a Jury Award at the NY Expo of Short Film and Video, among many others. Most recently, Harrison co-executive-produced Voting in America, a compilation of nine short films about why Americans don't vote that was broadcast on PBS in 2004. Current projects include Dreaming of Kawthoolei, a film about Burmese girls growing up in refugee camps on the border with Thailand. 

Harrison worked for eight years in France as an editor on French feature films before returning to the US to complete an Master’s of Arts in documentary filmmaking from Stanford University. Since 1997, Laura has taught media literacy and video production in the Houston public school system, history of documentary film at the University of St. Thomas, curated programs for the Aurora Picture Show, and made several short documentary and experimental films. One short, "Below," will be presented this month as part of The Territory's 32nd season on Houston PBS.

This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP to http://aurora@aurorapictureshow.org or call 713-868-2101 for more information

The photo shown above was featured in the documentary, and illustrates fun with inflatables in Freeport Beach, Texas, June 1969. - Courtesty of Aurora Library.