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Inheritance (2016—2020) is a multi-channel video installation and series. An allegory of the American opioid epidemic combining documentary and experimental film, Inheritance merges the political with the familial, as the I explore our family lineage of addiction.



Inheritance 005: Acceptance
4k Video, 14 min 38 sec. 2020.

The third film, Acceptance, is our unification told through the lens of a letter he sent me 15 years ago. He does not remember writing the letter or what it says. I filmed his initial opening, and reading of it. I used his reading of the letter, which contains some regret + a poem, to bring us together. The compositions and repeated imagery are stories unto themselves, most of which you can probably interpret, or I can explain more thoroughly on a phone call. This film, unlike the other two, can exist without context as a freestanding work. I believe it is the result of 4 other films (2 I never finished) and a half decade of work.

EXHIBITION VIDEO
(made by Ryan Hawk)

TRAILER

Screenings

2020. Solo Exhibition. Lawndale Art Center, Houston.





ABOUT
Cuyler Ballenger (b. 1985 Novato, California) is an art documentary filmmaker. His works are minimal, characterized by personal history, labor and industrial landscapes. Ballenger is interested in the materiality of memory and intergenerational collaboration. He is currently pursuing an MFA at the University of California San Diego.