Valerie Mendocino in collaboration with the
Mendocino Art Center

Please join us for a participatory screening of Brokeback Mountain on May 7 at Valerie, 10546 Lansing Street, Mendocino. Artist Natalie Woodlock has been organizing screenings of Ang Lee’s film, handing out handkerchiefs at the beginning of the movie, and afterwards asking viewers to write down the scenes that make them cry. She embroiders the names of each person who sheds tears on their handkerchief, and illustrates the scenes that bring viewers to tears for her artists’ book Tearjerker. 

This event is co-presented by The Mendocino Arts Center, Valerie and the artist. It is the first stop in Woodlock’s screening tour down the West Coast, through the Southwest and Texas. Doors open at 6 p.m.; the screening starts at 6:30 p.m.

When Brokeback Mountain was released in 2005, it immediately became a cultural touchstone. This film definitively summed up the pre-Stonewall era, quickly embedding itself within queer cultural memory. The participatory screenings and forthcoming artists’ book are works of sentimental collaboration, highlighting the connective possibility and collective power of popular film. By illustrating the scenes from Brokeback Mountain that bring viewers to tears, Woodlock hopes to memorialize the circle of sympathy present at each screening in the pages of each book. 

The artist will have prints for sale at the event—illustrations of scenes that previous audiences have cried during. Handkerchiefs provided.