Valery Lyman Artist Talk at Just Buffalo Writing Center (Oct. 11, 2018)
Filmmaker Valery Lyman discussed her creative process, her career, past work, and her current installation, "Breaking Ground" with high school students interested in careers in the arts at Just Buffalo Writing Center.
Lyman spent the past 5 years photographing and recording the sights and sounds of life in the Bakken region of North Dakota documenting the rise of the oil industry there and the massive migration that went along with it. Hers is the most comprehensive visual/aural archive of this time and place in American history. She used the material collected to create an immersive art experience called “Breaking Ground,” in which she projects the images against industrial relics as ambient sounds play in the background.
During her CAI residency, Lyman delved into the history of Buffalo, including its old steel mills, factories, grain elevators, locks and other leftovers from the city’s industrial past. The new footage will be incorporated into the artist’s collection of boom-and-bust images and displayed in future exhibitions of "Breaking Ground."