Exploratorium celebrates 40th anniversary of the Cinema Arts program

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- The Exploratorium invites visitors to a crossroads of art and science through its longstanding Cinema Arts program. For 40 years and counting, the museum has used the projection screen as a portal to imagination, investigation, and conversation.

"We're celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Cinema Arts program," said Sam Sharkland, the Curator of Cinema Arts at the Exploratorium. "It's a wonderful banner year for us to bring back weekend cinema, scented cinemas, and all sorts of performances this year that is celebrating the legacy of this arts program that was kind of started."

Cinema Arts engages artists and independent filmmakers to create animations, documentaries, poetic observations, and abstract visuals. The programming blends the methods and aesthetics of artists and scientists for immersive experiences and deep observation. And it continues to push boundaries.

"There's the third element that Cinema Arts encompasses, which is that extended cinema or expanded cinema, where it's the type of performance that comes right off the screen," described Sharkland. "A very live element, and just a different type of art happening, social time that expands, you know what film is or what it could even be considered."

"We enjoy showing a kind of multiplicity of genres. So, we hone in on experimental films that really allow kind of visual evocations and, but also documentaries, animations, really a kind of whole gamut of films," said Liz Keim, the Director/Curator of Cinema Arts at the Exploratorium.

Throughout this year, the Exploratorium will present a special series of curated screenings, public events, and immersive filmmaking experiences to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Cinema Arts.

The series will acknowledge the program's history, pay tribute to the accomplished filmmakers who have influenced the program's innovative direction, and amplify the voices and visions of a new generation of curators and emerging interdisciplinary/media artists.

"The Bay Area is known for its appreciation of cinema as an art form. We have a long history," described Keim. "It really is not just for the Exploratorium, but it is a reflection on the remarkable Cinema Arts community that we have here in San Francisco and Berkeley. And in some ways, it's I want to express gratitude to everyone who has shaped and build this program with us."

Learn more about Cinema Art's 40th Anniversary here.