Broad Underground is an ongoing collaboration between the MSU Broad Art Museum and the MSU Film Studies Program, Department of English, that presents experimental film, video, and new media, and encourages conversation around the topics featured.

Kevin Jerome Everson once sarcastically remarked, “Do the privileged powers also own the moon and the sun?” In this era of for-profit space exploration, this remains an open question. Globally recognized for his prolific body of films portraying the lives and experiences of Black Americans that “poignantly explore the concepts of labor and work,” the artist’s engagement with astronomical bodies as subject in his moving image practice began with a commission from the University of Virginia, intended to celebrate Black History Month. His response to the commission’s premise culminated in a counter argument. A refusal. An inward search, and a looking up and away. 

This edition of Broad Underground is curated by Oona Mosna, artistic director, Media City Film Festival. The filmmaker will be in attendance.