50 min
MING MEDIA is the Message with Jon Kaufman and El Sawyer Future Memory
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- Education
Future Memory welcomes El Sawyer and Jon Kaufman of MING Media. MING stands for Media In Neighborhoods Group – words that speak to WHERE Jon and El have been focusing their documentary work and the community-centered stories they’re known for telling. It’s been almost 10 years since the debut of Pull of Gravity, their first film and breakout project that shaped their future path in collaborative filmmaking. Pull of Gravity offers a rarely seen perspective on the prison system and those it impacts through the process of re-entry and the almost inescapable force of recidivism. In this episode, El and Jon share their own story of how they met, their style of collaboration and documentation, and how their non-linear, “human” approach to storytelling has taken them to neighborhoods around the world and ultimately changed both of their lives. We also talk about MING’s recent work with Monument Lab on projects like Re:Generation and Beyond Granite that underscore both partners’ connections to the power of truth-telling and the understanding that like monuments, the permanence of media can be hurtful to those it represents or misrepresents and to the communities who will remember its record.
*NOTE: The title of this episode is a nod to the iconic phrase “The medium is the message” coined by communication theorist, Marshall McLuhan. It refers to how the form of a medium or communication platform is ingrained in the message being communicated and creates a “symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived”.
Future Memory welcomes El Sawyer and Jon Kaufman of MING Media. MING stands for Media In Neighborhoods Group – words that speak to WHERE Jon and El have been focusing their documentary work and the community-centered stories they’re known for telling. It’s been almost 10 years since the debut of Pull of Gravity, their first film and breakout project that shaped their future path in collaborative filmmaking. Pull of Gravity offers a rarely seen perspective on the prison system and those it impacts through the process of re-entry and the almost inescapable force of recidivism. In this episode, El and Jon share their own story of how they met, their style of collaboration and documentation, and how their non-linear, “human” approach to storytelling has taken them to neighborhoods around the world and ultimately changed both of their lives. We also talk about MING’s recent work with Monument Lab on projects like Re:Generation and Beyond Granite that underscore both partners’ connections to the power of truth-telling and the understanding that like monuments, the permanence of media can be hurtful to those it represents or misrepresents and to the communities who will remember its record.
*NOTE: The title of this episode is a nod to the iconic phrase “The medium is the message” coined by communication theorist, Marshall McLuhan. It refers to how the form of a medium or communication platform is ingrained in the message being communicated and creates a “symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived”.
50 min