As part of The Freedom Principle at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Catherine Sullivan's film, Afterword Via Fantasia, is conceived within the framework of an opera written by composer George Lewis and co-directed between Sullivan and long time collaborator Sean Griffin. The opera and film are based on Lewis' widely acclaimed book about the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. Founded on the South Side of Chicago in 1965, the AACM has long played an internationally recognized role in American experimental music, forging new models of black identity and social activism. Sullivan transposes material from Lewis' libretto into a series of scenes shot on sets for other plays with parallel and divergent social and cultural themes, as well as an exterior location for the AACM's first rehearsals. An ensemble of actors, dancers, artists and AACM members animate these shifting scenographic atmospheres in the spirit of the AACM's artistic promiscuity and ethos of aesthetic mobility. The film is scored with recordings from the opera as well as music by Sean Griffin and Douglas Ewart.

Read more about the exhibition at the MCA Chicago.