People
Erin Espelie
Erin Espelie is a writer, editor, and filmmaker, with degrees in molecular and cellular biology from Cornell University and the experimental and documentary arts from Duke University. Her poetic, nonfiction films have shown around the world at the New York Film Festival, the British Film Institute's London Film Festival, the Whitechapel Gallery, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Imagine Science Film Festivaland more.
Her feature-length documentary, The Lanthanide Series, won the grand prize at the Seoul International New Media Festival in 2015; it has shown in Denmark, Portugal, the U.K. and had its New York City premiere at Anthology Film Archives in June 2016.
Espelie is currently and at the University of Colorado Boulder; she serves as an Associate Director of the Center for Environmental Journalism and is Editor in Chief of Natural History magazine, a centenarian publication for which she has worked since 2001.
Tara Knight
Tara Knight is a filmmaker, animator, and media designer for live performance. Her broad range of media practices includes animated shorts, dance collaborations, projection designand media installations. The Floating World, a performance she co-created with Malashock Dance, was awarded an Emmy in 2011. Her Mikumentary series of films have screened in institutions ranging from pop culture to fine arts, including: New York Comic Con, South by Southwest Interactive, Time Warner’s “Future of Storytelling,” animation festivals in Britain, Hong Kong, and Mexico, and a tour with Miku the hologram herself in North America and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. Two of Knight's short films won 2014 Van Gogh Awards at the Amsterdam Film Festival in the categories of animation and world cinema.
Recently, Knight hasworked as a projection designer for the La Jolla Playhouse’s premiere “Hollywood” as well as Diversionary Theater’s “Amazons and their Men,” and her most recent dance films are touring at festivals in Greece, Argentina, Helsinki and other international festivals. Current projects include Sound Planetarium, a multidisciplinary project to create an interactive, data-driven “instrument” for both artistic and scientific research.
Knight began her career as an optical printing assistant, a painter on the films of animation pioneer Faith Hubley, and as an animation assistant for Emily Hubley on her short films and the cult hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Knight received a BAfrom Hampshire College and an MFAin Visual Arts from the University of CaliforniaSan Diego. She is currently at the University of ColoradoBoulder.