So much love and deep respect for you. Your work means so much to me and all of those students I share it with, year after year. I’m so glad we were able to meet and talk for an hour or two in cafe in Ann Arbor a few years back. You are a model of courage and remaining open and clear-eyed no matter what.

So much love and appreciation to you Barbara. You made the world a wonderful place wherever you were and you leave warmth and love behind you. With Florrie Burke, we will all miss you—with the happiest of memories.

Clothed with the Heavens, Crowned with the Stars…

The Universe wraps its arms around you and flows with your spirit.

Rest In Peace and Power, beautiful Barbara Hammer.

Barbara, you will be remembered with love and awe for all you did for women filmmakers everywhere.

Barbara’s massive beaming energies of positivity are washing all over us now. I feel her here, beaming, BEAMING LARGE❤️ Such a trailblazer for the sisterhood.

Thank you for everything you gave to us. You helped every single dyke filmmaker you ever met including this one. You are the star always. I know you have gone somewhere extraordinary and expect to hear from you very soon about the journey. Love you Barbara. In my heart full-time forever.

In her Tie It Into My Hand lesson, Barbara manifested the pith of what it means to be artist and teacher. She took control of the shoot, bringing me out from behind the camera and seating me next to her. She dispensed not only with the format of the experiment but with the music I had prepared. In a few gut decisions, all of which threw me off my guard, she made it possible for us to play. This brief moment from the film is one of my favorite because it’s emblematic of how, as a pioneering queer filmmaker, Barbara was truly the mother of us all.

The first online class I ever taught was as her TA in March 2006, via The European Graduate School. I later did the same for Giorgio Agamben, Paul Virilio, and others in that context-but Hammer was the first, in a format I later made into a lifetime project. Thank you for getting me started, and thank you for relaxing/civilizing the world more broadly.

I met Barbara Hammer when I was a student at Stephens College at the Citizen Jane film festival. It was the first time I’d met a queer filmmaker. The first time I’d met a successful lesbian artist. It was through her legacy that I could see my future.

She gave me a copy of her film Dyketactics, and inside she signed it as my “Lesbian Film Mom.” Just this past week I submitted for a grant that would have allowed me to sit down with her again. Unfortunately, I won’t have that chance. But her incredible impact will live on in this world as a pioneer filmmaker and queer icon.

Barbara linked me to my first internship which led to my first job. When I’d reach out over the years to come, she always responded with words of encouragement. I will always remember her as one of the most influential people in the shaping of my future and career. She will be incredibly missed.

Barbara Hammer created a world that did not exist. She examined her own life and the lives of the women around her with curiosity, compassion, exuberance and capacious generosity. I only got to know her and the remarkable Florrie Burke over the past year and I thank the universe for it — they both are guiding lights for me. Such kindness. Such strength. Such wonder. Such love.

I will cherish those moments, the horse-riding, paddling, walking conversations and laughs we shared Barbara! Godspeed. Shine on. Rest in Power.

Courtesy Jonatan Habib Engqvist

In spring 2010, my friend convinced me to meet her at a film screening at MoMA. It was about a week before my college graduation, and in the last year before that I got really into making videos but at that point hadn’t started screening to queer audiences. I came in late and found my friend in the back. She was a little bored by the pacing of the film since and started whispering to me. (Needless to say, the screening was gorgeous and meditative and hot— I believe it was Tender Fictions on a double feature with History Lessons, or was it Dyketactics?) After the screening, I was shocked that the filmmaker, Barbara Hammer, was sitting right in front of us! After she gave a Q and A, she said into the mic “and I just want to thank the lesbians in the back for rejecting the idea of passively watching a film silently. It’s important to me that my audiences feel that they are living while watching.” Wow! I was shocked that she wasn’t upset with us and learned a new theory about audience and time. After the screening, my friend was having a cigarette outside the theater and Barbara came up to us to introduce herself. I told her that I was studying video art and she told me to send her my work. She watched it and told me to keep going!! I went back to some other screenings of hers and began to build community with other audience members, which is part of how I got involved with MIX. I learned so much from Barbara, not only about the importance of documenting your personal life and community, unashamed of sexuality, but also as a teacher of film/video, I look up to her humility and sense of encouragement. Her approach with younger people made me feel connected with a lineage and I hope I can be shaped enough by her values to continue that lineage of fostering queer filmmaking. Barbara was a giant of cinema and I feel so grateful for her work, her passion, her encouragement, and her existence.

One of the first profiles I ever wrote was of Barbara Hammer, for QW magazine, a gay weekly, in 1992. I went to her home on Bethune St, spent the whole afternoon with her. She was incredible, so warm and welcoming and brilliant—we were discussing her then-new work, “Nitrate Kisses.” I was fresh out of college and had seen her give a talk at Princeton a year earlier, and had been utterly mesmerized by her. We kept in touch a bit over the years and then 20 years later, Meredith Clair and I became very close with very dear friends of hers. This is a tremendous loss for the art world, for queer people and feminists everywhere, and for all who loved her. She was one of a kind, truly.

Barbara Hammer was such a brilliant and unflinching artist and a human being who radiated warmth and generosity to all she crossed paths with.

I look at the photos of her and she looks like the most alive person imagine, like the definition of joie de vivre, and she lost none of that as she aged.

I’m gonna miss her great artist’s eye, her generous way she cared for the younger generation of film makers and her deep, powerful lesbianism that opened my eyes many years ago..

Thank you, Barbara representing…all these years

Dear Barbara, You are a visionary. My practice and that of so many others wouldn’t have been possible without the work you’ve done. We leaned on you. And you reached out and made sure we all moved forward together. I’m ever grateful for your time here on earth and our time together. Rest in Peace, fierce spirit!

Sitting behind Barbara Hammer and Florrie Burke as we watched Barbara’s wonderful Evidentiary Bodies to close KJ Relth‘s and my first (of six) retrospective program of her work in November. Still so grateful and moved that you came to celebrate these screenings with us, how lucky we all were to have those unforgettable nights with you. Love you both so much.

Courtesy Mark Toscano

The first phrase that came to my mind when I heard the news of the passing of Barbara Hammer was the line, “Attention must be paid.” Not only was Barbara responsible for some of the first lesbian-made films in history (including such landmark experimental shorts as Dyketactics, 1974 and Women I Love, 1976), she devoted her life to filmmaking and was always an inspiration — to audiences and to her fellow filmmakers, and to her friends. I interviewed her for The Advocate Magazine in 2000 when she was honored with the Frameline Award. When I asked about her beginnings as a filmmaker she gave one of her classically provocative answers: “I didn’t start making 16mm films until I came out… As soon as I heard the word lesbian, I was in bed!” Rest in peace, Barbara.

Courtesy Jenni Olsen

Barbara Hammer. I will miss you and you will always be present. 

She said, in this presentation that I recommend for every human being,

“We know the pleasure that comes from the creative process whether it’s defiance of restrictive social mores or deliverance through ecstatic expression. Our art can make a difference.”

And hers does.

This is what is transmitted in Barbara’s work for me: sensation, honesty, pleasure.

Above all else, filmmaking with Barbara Hammer was fun. It was curiosity, it was play. And very rarely done for anyone or in the expected way. Which is why her work reached so many people and always will. Something to remember.

How often does a filmmaker get to intern with the director that they admire and did a grad school presentation on (A Horse is Not a Metaphor) — then to find themselves “playing” with a camera and other fun devices in the spaces where Maya Deren (another one of your favorite directors) made her own films — with that very director?

That is how my first filmmaking experiences began — with Barbara. I was doing organizing tasks for Barbara at Westbeth. She told me that Maya Deren’s sink was in the alley behind Anthology Archives, wanna go check it out? — Something like that. We did. And we started filming — the sink. The final short film, MAYA DEREN’S SINK, was almost an afterthought to the experience. I studied Maya Deren’s work in film school, but to be inside the walls of her spaces, meeting the people who live there now, the people who knew her, seeing her films projected on the same walls that she filmed, seeing cats everywhere who felt like a connection to the past. Yup. It was pretty magical. And these are the kinds of adventures that Barbara took you on. I have an idea… let’s go figure it out!

And so many more stories… There is rarely a project that I work on where I don’t think, at least once, about Barbara’s approach.

Thank you Barbara Hammer — for all the fun.

Pioneer, inspiration, mentor, fellow Taurus, friend. She will be missed. Rest in power my dear.

Courtesy James Nadeau

(Translated) I met Barbara Hammer in Paris in 1998 when I attended her experimental film and writing workshops. For many years I learned from her what it meant to work the experience and get involved in how to represent memory and representation policies. Years later in 2011 the exhibition of Claude name came back together to make a performance in the virreina centre of the city of Barcelona. On that occasion Barbara and I cooked tea tea in the small room of the apartment where she stayed and talked about life and doing. We project the images of 1998 that I recorded from Barbara in Paris during our meeting in 2011 as we chatted and performamos texts together with the people who accompanied us that afternoon. Again I feel that Barbara Hammer will continue to accompany us. Barbara Hammer Words: ” being experimental. It’s simple – an experiment is to make something that you have never been made, and I would add that it is for your own pleasure. That is why a background in art history or film studies can be an attribute so you are not remaking the wheel. At the same time it can be intimidating and maybe if you were on that time-Zealand wheel it would truly be different after you go through with it.” 

My memory of Barbara Hammer June 2010! We went for a ride in the Gottröra forest 60 km outside of Stockholm. It started to rain. We took cover in someones yard, they were not home, but never the less we borrowed some carpets to keep the saddles dry. It stopped raining we left unnoticed. She was a true adventurer!

Courtesy Ann-Sofi Siden

Barbara Hammer, literally, inspired me to make my first lesbian movie! It was 2001 (I think) and I had just seen one of Barbara Hammer’s films at NewFest here in NYC. I got really inspired and decided that I, too, could make lesbian movies! The following year I directed my first lesbian short film (Bar Talk). I never really got to know Barbara but I would see her around town a bunch at screenings, events, and conferences. One of my favorite sightings was in the early 2000’s when I was headed into to hand-deliver my grant application to the NYFA office moments before the deadline — and who do I see coming out of the revolving glass door, but Barbara! I felt like I was in good company. Never thought of what a fitting metaphor that revolving glass door was until just now. Thank you, Barbara, for the inspiration. For paving the way. For everything.

Hammer leaves behind a legacy of queer love, provocation, and possibility through her groundbreaking films that challenged the very fabric of the art. Among her many achievements is the Barbara Hammer Lesbian Experimental Filmmaking Grant she formed in 2017 in order to center the experiences and stories of lesbians, making it her life’s goal to put lesbian lifestyle on the screen.

Our Executive Director, J. Bob Alotta, said, “Barbara Hammer’s badass dyke imagination paved the way for lesbian artists, activists, and filmmakers who have come after her. We are indebted to her for representing our communities and our bodies with so much care, wildness, respect, authenticity, and joy.”

Barbara Hammer. The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) brought you in as a visiting artist – you taught classes, seminars, showed your films, shared the films that grew your cinematic intellect – drove to IOWA and offered classes there – as a graduate student I was lucky to be able to spend time with you in various situations — making, studying, theorizing, experimental film – every breath it seemed. I was honored when you asked me to come to SUNDANCE to promote your feature film. And that over the years whenever I was gifted your presence, you greeted me as friend.

You will always be with us – we are lucky to be able to continue to study – to share – to cherish the catalogue of cinematic art that is your legacy.

Barbara Hammer may you #restinpower. Always with a smile you greeted me. Your approach to film and the uncovering of lesbian love and queer histories was one-of-a-kind and ground-breaking. Thank you.

Stan’s and my beloved friend and neighbor, the pioneering filmmaker and force of nature extraordinaire Barbara Hammer, died yesterday morning, 13 years after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer. During those years she made 7 films, published an autobiography, traveled to 20 countries, and had retrospectives at, among other places, MoMA, the Tate Modern, the Hammer Museum (no relation!), and the Whitney. Shows in Ohio and Berlin are coming up later this year, and Barbara will most definitely be present. If anyone inspired you to lead a more curious, energetic, creative, full-throated life, it was Barbara. Thank you, B, and all our love to Florrie. Theirs has been one of the great love stories of all time.

She was an incredible teacher and artist, so full of passion and energy, so daring and committed to expressing herself and her views through film. She was radical and right on! She pushed me harder than any other teacher and I loved it and she saw me like no other teacher. She will truly be missed.

Courtesy Aarin Burch

As I’m experiencing the loss of the irrepressible and irreplaceable Barbara Hammer, I’ve been grateful for the many wonderful tributes and remembrances I’ve been reading here on Facebook and in so many magazines, newspapers, and web sites. She was one of the great lights in this world, and I feel her absence deeply. At the same time, right now at least, I’ve been feeling more love and gratitude than anything else. I can’t think of any other person over the years whom I’ve looked at and thought so consistently: Holy shit, that is a life well lived.

Maybe it’s the scholar/teacher in me (or is this the denial stage of grief?), but right now all I’m doing is pulling lessons from what she accomplished and modeled for us: how to stay connected to an inner core of vitality; how to balance (and integrate) work and life; how to keep growing and changing and exploring across one’s entire life (I remember how she gently but firmly pushed me to not look at only her 1970s films); how to stay committed and aware of your own value even when others aren’t (she was blessed with well-deserved recognition in her last decade, but there were spells in the past when she kept making work and putting herself out there even when the art world was turned the other way); how to nurture and support and inspire the artists and scholars of later generations (like me!) as well as those who are less privileged than yourself (she always showed up and paid things forward); and how to sow love and build community wherever you go.

I was so grateful to have some of that community around me when I got the news of her passing on Saturday. I was at the annual film studies conference and was surrounded by other queer and feminist film scholars as we started to process this tremendous loss. Much love to my fellow presenters on the “Resituating Barbara Hammer’s Queer Legacy” panel–Sarah Keller, Laura Stamm, and Ronald Gregg–and to the many other friends at the conference who shared my love for Barbara, including Rox Samer and Alexandra Juhasz. I was with people, in many respects, whom I know because of Barbara, and I’ll never forget that as I continue sharing the world with them.

Tonight I’m gathering my Sapphic community here in Bellingham to share some of Barbara’s magick and honor her. (The line-up, as of right now: Menses, Dyketactics, Women I Love, No No Nooky TV, and Still Point. But the program is open to change.)

And last but not least, I’m thinking so much these days about Barbara’s partner of thirty years, the fellow “genuine badass” with whom she traveled through life: the beautiful Florrie Burke. Florrie is someone else I’ve gotten to know through Barbara, and she has the same qualities I loved in her.

What a loss. But I’m so grateful that there are so many people sharing it, and hopefully no one out there is feeling alone.

Courtesy Greg Youmans

Courtesy Greg Youmans

Remembering this special morning with feminist artist and dear friend Barbara Hammer and my daughters Maya Street-Sachs and Noa Street-Sachs.

Courtesy Lynne Sachs

I’ve had a hard time processing the loss of this woman, both fierce and kind. I met Barbara Hammer when I was working at a bookstore shortly after moving to NYC in 2004. I recognized the name on her credit card, and I awkwardly told her I that I knew her name – I had studied her films in school. She hired me as an assistant (almost on the spot), and shortly after she set me off on my career by recommending me for my first “industry” job. She has been strong presence in my life ever since, my greatest supporter, and my best critic. I feel so fortunate to have contributed, in my own small ways, to a few of her films. I have been thinking about her daily, and my heart is with Florrie Burke during this most difficult time. This picture is a year old, but I feel so immensely grateful that I have this memory to show Maya in years to come, that it seems the most appropriate to share.

Courtesy Stephanie Testa

Barbara Hammer gave me so many things. One of them was this goofy-ass hat. I’m wearing it today as I rake the beds in our yard and process the incredible experience we had in Tijuana this last week with Al Otro Lado. Barbara, I feel you with me, I love you, and I hope you are in peace.

Courtesy Katherine Franke

In the final years of her life, Barbara Hammer dubbed me “our Feminist Godard.” I laughed because there is playfulness in everything she said. But she was also, always serious. That was Barbara. She wanted to make sure that all us feminist innovators understood the importance of our work, heads held high. Her example is this: what we see may not be something you recognize but it will always be something you might one day understand. She was not waiting for that day to come. Today I stand with the weight of her conferral and, in solidarity with all of my sisters declare : With the fire of Hammer vested in me: Be forewarned all male gatekeepers (including you gay men who should be our allies). We are coming. In plain sight. Not hidden in the horse. And you will open the gates. You will simply have no choice. We have been ordained by the mighty Hammer. She rests now only to enjoy from the box seats what might happen next.

That day Alina met you, Florrie and Barbara (and of course Dandy), meant the world to me. Thank you for your Light and your caring, joy, advice, criticism (always productive), and Love.

I met Barbara for the first time at Hallwalls, when Erica Eaton and the Evolutionary Girls Club were in town. Barbara screened her most recent film at the time, Resisting Paradise, and shared everything with her audience. I drove her to record an interview in Toronto soon after, spoke all the way about our shared histories (both Eastern European at the core). I wrangled cable for Hammer 🎬🔻she taught me to take myself seriously, as a curator, as a filmmaker, as an individual. Won’t forget any of it. X

Courtesy Joasia Raczynska

Courtesy Joasia Raczynska

I will always remember the #AMIA2007 panel “The Fragile Emulsion” I helped #JonGartenberg organize in Rochester, NY. Crazy to think that it was damn near impossible to be able to show your films ON FILM in 2007 at a conference held at Kodak’s HQ!! It was a challenge we overcame, one that you helped us to manage without getting frazzled, and you also made us laugh through the hardest parts. The day of the panel, it was pouring rain and we managed to get you a ride in Jean-Louis Bigourdan’s truck that he carries his sheep dogs in– you were already soaked to the bone, but hopped right into the truck full of dog hair and sheep fluff, smiling and laughing the whole way. The show went off without a hitch, and it was so great to hear you talk about your work using the Sibley-Watson films for your film Sanctus. A homecoming of sorts for the footage, but a program that was uniquely you.

Tears remembering when beloved and brilliant Barbara Hammer first came to UnionDocs to screen Resisting Paradise in January 2005. It was part of a “post-inaugural assembly” on art and activism organized by Steffani Jemison and Amiel Melnick, among others.

The spirit of that night, feed by Barbara’s political and social commitment and her dedication to pushing formal boundaries within her art, offered a major source of excitement and motivation for what the space was to become. She was so encouraging and generous to us, despite our (particularly my) inexperience and lack of knowledge. Note crazy seating and projector rig. I wasn’t a student of experimental film or artist moving image at the time. So, in many ways, her work was an entrance for me into a unknown canon. An interest which then grew, perhaps more importantly, into an entrance into a community of artists in New York and beyond. Much to be grateful for. There were a number of fortunate chances following to learn from Barbara, but I hold that night very dear. I think it was snowing.

I know this is a part of life and I have to say what a great woman and artist and leader she was for our great generation of change. I thank her and love her and honor her. in the early days of my interviewing Russian queers, she and her partner Florrie gave me a supportive house party in San Francisco which I will never forget. I enjoyed reading about her recent crowning work in New York and wish I could have seen it but communicated with her. There is a lot to say. Love and peace Barbara Hammer.

Amongst everything crushing, when Barbara Hammer grabs your hand after a screening, you are reminded of what is powerful and radical and what are supreme moments of joy.

Courtesy Kelly Sears

Rest in power, Barbara Hammer. Thank you for your fierce commitment to experimental lesbian art and filmmaking, for your generosity, and force of life. I am forever grateful that you graced my film, The Cancer Journals Revisited, with your inimitable presence, and kept me afloat with your sustaining support of it.

Courtesy Lana Lin

it is with a heavy heart that i announce the death of my beloved teacher & mentor, the woman who planted the seed in me that made me the artist that i am today.

let us celebrate this death that Barbara Hammer was embracing, this death on her own terms. let us celebrate everything that Barbara taught all of us about living and dying.

gracias mi amiga, mi maestra. gracias mil.

vale, my dear teacher, my dear dear friend, Barbara Hammer …

my heart breaks, and is filled with gratitude for all of your kindness, all of your warmth, your teachings, your dear dear friendship …

with my eternal appreciation, and all my love …

Courtesy Jeremy Fernando

My aunt Barbara Hammer is one of the fiercest beings I have ever known. She died this morning but her legacy will powerfully thrive because of all the love and energy she shared with us all. I’m surrounding my aunt Florrie with so much light and love. We must all continue to make art, challenge the norms and live our best lives.

Thinking, like so many others, of Barbara Hammer.

Just knowing that she existed and was making films made me feel emboldened, like someone was up ahead, blazing a trail, cutting through the thicket of bullshit and barriers, even if I, of course, could never follow directly in her path. Who on earth could! I’ll never forget how she first approached me — with a big smile after a screening of my first film and she treated me as though I were a peer even though I was just starting out. That kind of enthusiasm and generosity from an elder in the field means a lot.

I was so grateful to get a glimpse into her creative process, her loving partnership, her life. Thank you Barbara for being you fearlessly, always.

Courtesy Astra Taylor

I guess we only met once. But I do remember well that at a screening of my film Sleepy Haven at San Francisco’s Roxy Theatre Barbara got loud. The audience of the LGBT Film Festival had expected a bit more nudity and narrative continuity than my film had to offer, got nervous and noisy – until Barbara stood up shouting at the crowd: “Shut up, folks, it’s experimental!“ – I’m still grateful, I’m still laughing. Goodbye, Barbara!

I’m so sad to hear that the brilliant, towering, revolutionary filmmaker Barbara Hammer had died. I had the privilege of meeting her when I used to work at the Sundance Film Festival and her example was an inspiration to us all. 26 years older than me, she always had the energy of someone half my age. One year in Park City, I saw her square dancing at a party one night and skiing the next morning. All week long she was watching four or five films a day and fielding questions at the screenings of her own film. Every queer artist who came along after her is in her brilliant, life-affirming debt. I’m so sad that she’s no longer with us.

Courtesy Daniel Humphrey

There are really not enough words to express how important, influential, badass, beautifully relentless, beyond, beyond, beyond, a fucking force of radical amazingness Barbara was. The first time I met her in person about 15 years ago, she said to me “I hope I live long enough to see someone remake one of your films!” Barbara pushed me hard and always with love and encouragement. Let us bask in her unbelievable legacy. Thank you for giving me the time and for SEEING me Barbara! thank you for making so many people feel special and empowered! I promise to keep fighting and fucking with strong queer feminists fists.

I volunteered to pick Barbara Hammer up at the airport in Columbus almost a decade ago. The drive back to Athens, OH solidified a friendship that I will alway cherish. In between then and now, I rode my motorcycle from Ohio to NYC to see Barbara perform at the Kitchen, I assisted her on countless projects, I performed with her, worked in her studio, cleaned prints for her, moved boxes, and one time I picked her up at home and wheeled her to the Whitney after she broke her leg jumping off a stage. Barbara was a true inspiration and a warm, welcoming friend. Her strength and resilience are aspirational but the greatest lesson we can take from her life and work is to pursue joy through creative play! She described herself this way at the screening of her film, Welcome To This House at MOMA, “I don’t want to go to the moon but I do want to have small adventures in my life”. Knowing Barbara was one of the greatest adventures of my life and I’ll be conjuring her spirit ever time I teach, lecture, and make my work in the world. She’s with the stars now, closer to the moon than ever. And I’m running my fingers over the words she wrote to me in her book to feel the tracks that the pen left on the page.

Courtesy Kris Grey

Courtesy Kris Grey