The Days of Our Lives: Karen Christopher

This program includes seven autobiographical videos by six Chicago women, all students or recent graduates of Columbia College or the School of the Art Institute. Fred Camper, Chicago Reader April 19, 1996.

In six of the tapes a voice-over narrates a personal story. The one tape that eschews voice-over, Marie-Joelle Rizk’s Tabbouleh, tells its story through printed titles; its editing, far more precise than that of the others, is matched to a jaunty sound track of circus music. Rizk, who fled her native Lebanon’s civil war, could make a case for herself as victim as well; but despite images of a devastated Beirut, this work is humorous, rhythmically upbeat, and full of life. Rizk intercuts autobiographical footage with a person making tabbouleh. The completion of the salad becomes a metaphor for the completion of her story, while the intercutting also makes the feminist point that “mundane” domestic tasks are as important as life’s grand events. Also on the program are videos by Liz Sandler, Cathleen O’Farrell, and Mira Gelley