The War and Empire Summer Drawing Lyceum
(Re-Drawing the Vietnam Conflict)

El Circulo De Dibujo proudly sponsors The War and Empire Summer Drawing Lyceum, an opportunity to draw a series of films made during the Vietnam War (1954-1975)*. We are curious as to how and why a society entertains/distracts itself while at war and wonder what we can infer about our culture's relationship to state-sanctioned violence by visually examining the forms our distraction takes. As we watch, we will sketch that which we can rapidly commit to paper.

By foregoing our present war and selecting the Vietnam War as our central framing device, hopefully we give ourselves the benefit of historic distance and can begin to interpret the visual coding of fear and faith. Much of the cinema produced at that time can be easily quantified as escapist ("Sound of Music") and/or extremely violent ("Bonnie and Clyde"). By gathering various artists together, to draw these movies as they watch them, El Circulo de Dibujo, has several aims:

1. To offer a space for discussion and problem solving around notions of war and empire
2. To provide a social context for investigating the relationship between cinematic entertainment and politics
3. To promote a deeper level of comprehension of our cultural tendencies
4. To document our findings and prepare them for public interpretation

Screenings are held in various places during the summer months. Please bring any materials you will need to draw.

Screenings: Godzilla (1954), Sound of Music (1965), Bonnie and Clyde (1967), The Shooting (1967)

Participants: Mary Walling Blackburn (Organizer), Paul Chan, Joel Ferree, Shelley Jackson, Sameer Kapoor, Sean Meyer, Julia Shirar, Leejone Wong.

* Date provided by Vietnamese Embassy in Washington D.C. Covert American intervention began as early as 1954.