Matt Town: Coral

Los Angeles Filmforum presents

Matt Town: Coral

Sunday September 14th, 2025, 7:30 pm

At 2220 Arts + Archives, 2220 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles CA 90057

In person: Artist Matt Town and programmer Jorge Ravelo

Tickets: $15 general, $10 students/seniors, free for Filmforum members

https://link.dice.fm/ece161f5bf95

Los Angeles Filmforum welcomes local artist & experimental filmmaker Matt Town to screen films and videos from his latest show “Coral”, as well as select older works.

Town, who frequently addresses social issues in his work, turns his attention in “Coral” to themes of chemical addiction in the US, drawing upon the experiences of and at times collaborating with his family members. His new 16mm and video works form a strikingly intense, poetic, and personal response to the opioid epidemic, alcoholism, and methods of addiction treatment. The works being screened are the result of his own process of grieving and healing following the sudden death in 2018 of his older step-sister from opioids.

Los Angeles Filmforum will screen “Coral”, a structuralist 16mm film, referencing both the marine organisms and the first name of Town’s sister, who was in her thirties when she died in her home on the Florida Gulf, where the artist is also from. For the film, which is shot underwater, Town spent over a year learning about, training for, and getting certified in open water scuba diving. The purpose was to create a living, ocean memorial by planting a “gravestone” sculpture within a coral reef, the act of which appears in the film. The circular stone — with the letters CORAL in capital letters on its surface— now rests at an undisclosed location off the coast of California and is made with environmentally friendly concrete into which Town mixed his sister’s ashes.

“Bleached coral can regain its health and can return to life after bleaching, which the film proposes by placing the concrete tombstone I made with my sister’s ashes on a reef in the ocean, to enable new growth and new life.” — MT 

The artist’s use of black and white film stock connects the dangers of the unfriendly Pacific waters he dives in, the condition of the coral reefs — which experienced their worst global bleaching event in the years just prior to his sister’s death — and the solemness of his actions. While, at times, the unsettling figure of Town in his scuba gear reminds us of the precariousness of life and breath.

Matt Town (b. 1989, Sarasota, Florida) is a Los Angeles-based artist working with moving image, photography, painting, installation and sculpture. His work is primarily concerned with a sense of community and one’s role within it and has appeared at Microscope Gallery, New York; eyes never sleep, New York; Last Projects, Los Angeles, CA; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; The Box, Los Angeles, CA; Torrance Art Museum, Torrance, CA; and The Horse, Dublin, Ireland, among others. His works have screened at Anthology Film Archives, New York, NY; Millennium Film Workshop, New York, NY; UnionDocs, Brooklyn, NY; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; among others. His works have been discussed in Millennium Film Journal, ARTnews, ArtObserved, Hyperallergic, and others. Matt Town received a BA in Film & Media Studies from the University of Florida in 2013 and an MFA in Art from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) in 2017.

 

Program contents and guest speaker TBD