MoMA presents the New York premiere of Sharon Lockhart’s Double Tide (2009), a luminous and meditative portrait of a woman digging clams in the mudflats of the Atlantic Ocean. Filmed in Seal Cove, Maine, a historic site for commercial clamming, during a rare natural phenomenon—when low tide occurs twice during daylight hours, once at dawn and once at dusk—Double Tide depicts an ageless tradition of backbreaking work within the sublime and quiet beauty of a wild coastal landscape. The film, which also exists as a double-screen gallery installation, continues the fascination with ritual and labor seen in Lockhart’s other recent works, from her choreographed study of Japanese farmers piling hay (NO, 2003) to her recent look at Maine shipyard workers at rest (Lunch Break, 2008) and leaving the factory at day’s end (Exit, 2008). As with many of her films, Double Tide occupies the liminal space between stillness and movement, and between actual time and subjective time. Jen Casad, the clam digger who appears in the film, will join Lockhart in a Q&A following the opening night screening on November 11.
Organized by Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film.