Cauleen Smith: Mutualities

This film traces the artist’s pilgrimage to three sites: Alice Coltrane’s Turiyasangitananda Vedantic Center in Agoura, California; Watts Towers in Los Angeles; and the Black spiritual activist Rebecca Cox Jackson’s Watervliet Shaker community in upstate New York. In vivid evocations of each place’s creative atmosphere, Smith’s  camera slowly explores the ashram’s interior and Coltrane’s musical instruments, while her use of 16mm film—with its soft grain and subtle color palette—infuses Watts Towers and the Shaker garden’s flowers with an emotional intimacy. 

Jackson’s advocacy of racial and gender equality, her fight against the patriarchy of organized religion, and her awareness of the African roots of her faith resonate with Coltrane’s own hybrid, transnational spiritual and musical language. Both women’s challenges to accepted authority are, like the enduring independent spirit of Watts Towers, grounded in a sense of place, community, and generosity that are also hallmarks of Smith’s own transformative work.