Aug. 10, 2010

Professor Enid Baxter Blader will show three of her video works at the Center for Contemporary Art in Sacramento on Aug. 21.

Blader, a filmmaker, musician and painter, teaches digital cinema at CSU Monterey Bay and is chair of the university's Department of Teledramatic Arts and Technology.

Her work has been shown at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, and the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. She lectures internationally on apocalyptic media. Her work gives viewers a glimpse of everyday apocalypses, which she defines as the ending of the familiar and the beginning of something new.

In Local 909er (16 mm film and digital video, 30 minutes), Blader examines the rapid suburbanization and transformation of the Inland Empire, an area centered around the cities of Riverside and San Bernardino in Southern California. The fast-growing population has resulted in master-planned communities, mega malls and "McMansions" replacing the once vast expanse of vineyards, orange groves and fields.

Secret Apocalyptic Love Diaries (video, 12 minutes) is an ongoing, episodic series that Blader shot with her "Frankenstein camera," made of parts from old TV cameras. She describes Diaries as a "small-time apocalypse" about relationships.

An excerpt from Planet Ord will be shown that documents the de-commissioned Fort Ord Army Base, now the site of CSUMB.

The show will start at 2 p.m., doors will open at 1:30. Admission is free to CCAS members and students; general admission is $5.

The Center for Contemporary Art is located at 1519 19th St.

For more information, call the museum at (916) 498-9811 or visit www.ccasac.org.

Photo of Enid Baxter Blader by Reggie Woolery/KCET