2020 | Ecuador | Experimental

E Unum Pluribus

  • English 12 mins
  • Director | Libertad Gills
  • Writer | Libertad Gills
  • Producer | Libertad Gills

STATUS: Released

This film is currently not available.   

Frederick Douglass was the most photographed person of the 19th century. Today, his image appears on a quarter. He, a man who believed in the power of variation and in photography's ability to document that variation, has been transformed into a single, fixed image. The onetime anti-slavery activist is now used as a symbol of capitalism and US imperialism. In Ecuador, a country that has dollarized since 1999, Douglass's image also circulates. By tracing the coin's imprint over and over again in black, white, and gray, I reverse the process. A single image of Douglass becomes many. Like Douglass, I also believe in the power of repetition and variation. E Unum Pluribus. From one, many.

Portraiture Repetition Variation Symbolism Transformation
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