Paige Taul
Thousandsuns
Cinema
Paige Taul was born in Berkeley, California in 1996. She received her BA in Studio Art with a concentration in Cinematography from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville (2018), and an MFA in Moving Image from the University of Illinois at Chicago (2020). In her own words, Taul’s work engages with and challenges assumptions of Black cultural expression and notions of belonging through experimental cinematography. She tests the boundaries of identity and self-identification through an autoethnographic approach to notions of racial authenticity. Her interests lie in observing environmental and familial connections to concepts tied to race-based expectations and to expose those boundaries of identity in veins such as religion, style, language, and other Black community-based experiences. She has completed nearly 20 films since 2017, which have screened at Black Star Film Festival, Union Docs, San Francisco Cinematheque, Mirror Lab, Prismatic Ground, and SFMoMA in conjunction with Dawoud Bey’s exhibition An American Project: After DeCarava. Taul has been an artist-in-residence at Institut für Alles Mögliche (Berlin), Chicago Artists Coalition, and Mountain Lake Biological Station (Pembroke, VA). She was production assistant to Kevin Jerome Everson, and Religion, Race and Democracy Fellow at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
It’s a Condition, 3 min, 2018
An answer to a proverbial question. An exploration of the concept of double consciousness and an attempt to render it visually.
Reid’s Records, 4 min, 2018
An interview with David Reid, current owner and inheritor of Reid’s Records in Berkeley, California, reflecting on the impact of gentrification on business and the neighborhood.
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While filming, I was most interested in learning how Reid’s Records, a gospel music store in Berkeley, California related to the history of its surrounding neighborhood. Reid’s, which offers up a particular brand of South Berkeley hospitality, has for decades been a gathering space for those brought together by the love of vinyl and gospel culture. It has functioned as much as a social site as a business. During my visits, customer foot traffic was sparse and reflected the evolution of the neighborhood. The once majority Black population has disappeared rapidly over the last decade as a result of gentrification. Owner David Reid laments over the evolution of the consumption of music from records to digital streaming. This film was not only an effort to preserve, but honor the space and the people it represents. The Reid family has played a significant role in the production and consumption of gospel music in the Bay Area, and the larger international scene. It was a comfort and pleasure to talk to a Californian who knew a different Berkeley. As the city continues to drastically change, hopefully Reid’s Records will remain a constant. – Paige Taul
My prayer for future generations is to not make the mistakes, to not allow the same things that happened to you that have been happening to my generation and generations previously. African Americans, I know we’ve achieved a lot of things in a lot of ways but, it’s with gentrification, there’s nowhere you can point where we are. I mean if you go to any city nowadays and you go to look at Martin Luther King Boulevard. There’s none of us there. We don’t live there anymore. It’s like a tombstone. This is where Black people used to be. And I think that’s a tragedy. – David Reid
All stills, photographs, and artwork courtesy Canyon Cinema and ©Paige Taul. Screening co-presented with Canyon Cinema.
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