Barbara Hammer: A Visual Poet

Directed by Barbara Hammer
90 mins

Synopsis

Charting Barbara Hammer’s expansive experimental practice, this chronological collection of nine shorts moves from light and the body to technology and personal reckoning.

Spanning her five-decade career (1968–2015), Hammer’s work unfolds as a tactile exploration of image, sensation and memory. Moving between hand-crafted textures, layered montage, animation and immersive sound, these works are at times explicit and visually intense. Highlights include the playful No No Nooky T.V.; the mesmerising, X-ray imagery of Sanctus; and her profoundly personal Teddy Award-winning A Horse Is Not a Metaphor. Hammer was a restless and inventive visual poet who strived to make the invisible visible.

Shorts in this session: Contribution to Light, Psychosynthesis, Our Trip, Pools (co-directed by Barbara Klutinis), Tourist, No No Nooky T.V., Sanctus, A Horse Is Not a Metaphor, Lesbian Whale

Tickets

Wed 10 June 2026, 6:15pm
Palace Central Cinemas - Cinema 1
Assisted ListeningWheelchair
Aboriginal FlagTorres Strait Flag

Sydney Film Festival acknowledges Australia’s First Nations People as the Traditional Owners and Custodians of the land, and pay respect to the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, upon whose Country SFF is based.

We honour the storytelling and culture of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities across Australia.

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