Mackenzie Chester

Substance and Shadow:
An Autobiography in 8 Short Videos

I want to live an important life.
By this, I do not mean that I want to be famous or wealthy, but instead I want desperately to know that my life has meaning.

I am the youngest of nine children, and as a gift from a generous church, we received a video camera in the winter of 1990 when I was eight years old.  I immediately took to movie-making.  My friends and I acted out fairy tales and game shows and science experiments.  We made music videos and commercials and talk shows.  Because of our determination to make movies and because of my parents’ willingness to trust a child with the video camera, I have now inherited a rich history of myself as a child on video.  This fascinates me.

I am amazed at video’s ability to allow my adult self to examine what I was like as a child—how I looked, how I spoke, how I saw the world.  When I watch old home videos, I am becoming an observer of my life at the same time I am living it.  I am able to remember and at the same time realize how my life has and has had meaning.

My current video work is a collection of short vignettes that are mostly-performance based.  In these short movies, I often reflect on video’s ability to allow me to exist in two places or even two times all at once.  I also combine footage from my childhood with current video footage to confuse boundaries between time and space.

In looking over my life, I know that it has been important.  I have found a great purpose in simply living out the life that I have been given.  I am happy to share bits and pieces of it through my videos, and my deep desire is that these videos will cause you, the viewer, to think about the potential and purpose of one normal life.  Thank you for looking.  May your sight be touched.

Song of Sixpence
2006
still from video

Secure the Shadow
still from video

The Birthday Room
still from video