Residency

Alex Rivera is a New York based digital media artist and filmmaker whose work over the past fifteen years has used a wild variety of forms to explore issues of labor, migration, and other cross-border exchanges.

A scene from the film SLEEP DEALER.

His first feature film, SLEEP DEALER, is a science-fiction set in Tijuana, Mexico. SLEEP DEALER premiered at Sundance 2008, winning two awards including the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. Rivera is a Sundance Fellow, Rockefeller Fellow, Creative Capital Grantee and USA Artist Fellow. His films and videos have been screened at The Berlin International Film Festival, New Directors/New Films, The Guggenheim Museum, PBS, Telluride, and other international venues.

While in residence Rivera is teaching “From Ecotopia to Ecopocalypse: Telling Digital Stories About the Environment,” which explores two questions: How can we understand the changes occurring all around us in our lived environment? How can we speak powerfully about those changes? Taking a cross-disciplinary approach, Rivera will introduce students to both readings on environmental issues and films that communicate pressing ecological realities. Students will learn the basics of creative filmmaking––working with found footage, thinking artistically with the camera, discovering the power of creative sound design, and creating visually-driven scripts––as they produce a short personal film on the subject of “Ecotopia and Ecopocalypse” to be screened at the Tales From Planet Earth Film Festival in November, 2013.

This residency is hosted by the Nelson Institute and cosponsored by the Department of Communication Arts, the Art Department, and Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies.

Nelson Institute
Department of Communication Arts Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian Studies Art Department