Jason Sandford
Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.
A screening of Wastedland 2 will be held beginning at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6 at the Burger Bar in West Asheville. Director Andrew H. Shirley and artists from the film will be present at the screening.
Much of the film was shot over a two-year period in Western North Carolina, according to a press release. This past summer, Shirley taught at Black Mountain School, where he finished editing the film.
Here’s more about Wastedland 2:
-“A new Wizard of Oz for the Anarchist Street Youth.” Charlie Ahearn Director of Wild Style
In a post apocalyptic world, the last few remaining inhabitants are the spirit animals of graffiti writers. Three solitary nomadic vandals (played by: Wolftits, Avoid, and Smells) cross paths while on the hunt of the meaning behind the abandoned landscape’s prevailing enigmatic artwork left behind by UFO. Roaming from one decaying zone to the next in a never ending search for beer, weed, and a wall to paint, these artists form a pact with the rest of the desperate survivors (played by Rambo, Noxer, EKG and others). Through the practice of their ritualistic art- they will seek to attain truth and ultimately receive the answer to the question of their futility- “what’s the point?”
As with the original Wastedland (10 min/ B&W / 2008), for Wastedland 2 (30 min/ B&W and Color/ 2016) Shirley asked many prominent graffiti artists to create costumes and masks in the likeness of what they believed to be their spirit animals. Then, using the same landscape the artists typically employ as a backdrop for their work, they traveled from the Catskill mountains of New York to Black Mountain, North Carolina- filming in squalid buildings and freight train yards along the way, illegally. The mystical theme of the seeker was incorporated into the process of production, letting the film write itself from narrative exploration, chanced encounters, and unscripted improvisation.
The film was made possible in part from a editing residency from Clocktower Productions in New York City: November 2015 – April 2016.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Andrew H. Shirley finds an obsession in living experimentation. His multi disciplinary artwork has appeared in PS 1, Museum of Sex, McDonald’s International, and Vogue and has had films screened at festivals in over 300 cities worldwide. As a social architect, he has curated the underground into public institutions such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music to a secret treehouse gallery in upstate New York. Though primarily nomadic, he sometimes resides in Brooklyn / NYC, with his cat Myrtle.
Burger bar is a freaking wastedland!