“An adroit paradox of presenting the incomprehensible.”
These Were Not Simple Deaths
Features Lilian Black OBE discussing her father, Eugene Black, the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. Lilian discusses their families subsequent visits to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camps 40 years later.
Director Profile
Jordan Baseman
Director Bio :
Jordan Baseman is a visual artist and filmmaker. He received a BFA from Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and an MA from Goldsmith’s College, University of London. Baseman is currently the Reader in Time-Based Media, Senior Tutor in Moving Image at the Royal College of Art, London.
Baseman has a long history of creating projects in collaboration with UK-based and international, not-for-profit and public institutions. The artworks are installations, audio works, and single-screen films. Jordan Baseman’s films are frequently featured in international exhibitions and film festivals.
Selected Recent Projects: Do Faster Win More, Arts + Heritage, National Paralympic Heritage Trust (2022/2023); Artist in Residence, Chelsea + Westminster Hospital Intensive Care Unit, London (2021/2022); A Different Kind of Different, Matt’s Gallery, London, (2021); I Dreamt I saw you at Lidl, Without Reduction, Happy Hypocrite, Book Works, London (2021); A River in Reverse, UNTV, Unconformity, Queenstown Tasmania, Australia (2020); Fabula, BBC and Culture in Quarantine, London, (2020); Radio Influenza, Wellcome Trust, London, (2019); gendersick, Fort Worth Contemporary Art, Fort Worth, Texas, (2018); Blackout 7 Films by Jordan Baseman, Broadway Metro, Eugene, Oregon (2018); The Unconformity, Artist in Residence, Queenstown, Tasmania (2018); 1977, House of St. Barnabas, London (2017); DisObey, Matt’s Gallery @ Close-Up Cinema, London (2017)
Jordan Baseman is represented by Matt’s Gallery London.
Director Statement :
These Were Not Simple Deaths features Lilian Black OBE. Lilian’s father, Eugene Black, was the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust. Mr. Black was liberated from Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp. We hear Lilian describe her feelings, thoughts about her childhood, starting with her accidental discovery of her father’s experiences as a prisoner to their subsequent journey back to Bergen-Belsen and to Auschwitz- Birkenau where Mr. Black had been enslaved. As Lilian speaks, we see ancient trees, just coming into leaf. The very start of Spring. This realization is slow to appear. We never see where the trees are located. We only see a copse of trees – eventually shown to be towering over everything. The trees are solely lit by ambient light at night. These Were Not Simple Deaths is the result of a research residency at Holocaust Centre North UK throughout late 2022 and early 2023. Please be aware that These Were Not Simple Deaths contains themes of death, the Holocaust and Genocide.
