Asst. Prof. Colleen Kennedy-Karpat of the Department of Communication and Design has co-edited the new book “The Sustainable Legacy of Agnès Varda: Feminist Practice and Pedagogy,” published by Bloomsbury in April 2022. This volume celebrates the legacy of French director and visual artist Agnès Varda, who left behind more than six decades of work as a filmmaker, photographer and installation artist when she died in 2019.
Co-edited by Prof. Feride Çiçekoğlu of Istanbul Bilgi University, the chapters explore how creation, connection and environment form the core of Varda’s artistry. Many were initially presented at the Virtual Varda conference hosted online in 2020 to mark the first anniversary of Varda’s death. But the book’s fourth section is entirely original to the volume, featuring ten preeminent scholars writing about what Varda’s work has taught them and about their personal approaches to teaching Varda’s work to students around the world.
Overall, the book covers a range of Varda’s work, from her Oscar nominated travelog Faces Places (2017) to her multimedia installations; from the classic New Wave film Cleo from 5 to 7 (1962) to her portrait of Los Angeles lovers in Lions Love…and Lies (1969); from her autobiographical documentary The Beaches of Agnès (2008) to the production history of her short fiction film Pleasure of Love in Iran (1976).
“These essays,” writes film scholar Girish Shambu, “revise and open out our understanding of a cinema that both depicts and embodies sustenance.” Luc Vancheri says that the book “constitutes a magnificent critical tribute to the work of a filmmaker who turned cinema into an art of encountering.” Shambu praises its “expansive and multifaceted treatment” of Varda’s body of work, and Sharon Willis writes: “In framing its collection of essays in terms of sustainability, The Sustainable Legacy of Agnès Varda offers a timely intervention in feminist criticism in visual studies.”
For more information consult the Bloomsbury website:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/sustainable-legacy-of-agnès-varda-9781350240902/