"What is real? What is the nature of representation? What does it mean to be human? Can the world be remade?" Asks Julia Curl '16. An avant-garde storyteller since her Commonwealth days, she now challenges her audiences (and herself) to unpack these questions through film, as she runs the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, America’s oldest and largest distributor of experimental cinema, balanced with her Ph.D. studies at Princeton, where she's specializing in avant-garde photography and film.

Post-Commonwealth, Julia headed to the New School in New York City, where she earned a B.F.A. in photography and a B.A. in literary studies. While still an undergrad, she also worked as the director of a Madison Avenue photography gallery. After graduating during the COVID-19 pandemic, Julia took a gap year to work for an artist’s archive and write art criticism. She also joined the Board of the Film-Makers’ Cooperative, an organization she's still involved with today. Keep reading to learn more about this Brooklyn, New York, transplant, her advice for future filmmakers, and the evolution of her storytelling from a Commonwealth' capstone project to the Art & Archaeology Department at Princeton.

Getting to Know You

What is bringing you joy right now? 

Long walks in Prospect Park.

What is your favorite book (or a book you’ve re-read)? 

Every time I read any book by Virginia Woolf it becomes my new favorite book, though I also love Soviet-era sci-fi.

What are your favorite comfort foods? 

Oatmeal, berries, Brussels sprouts—though they don’t really sound like comfort foods, they’re my faves.

When do you feel the most enjoyably challenged? 

I’m a chronic multitasker, so whenever I have a variety of different types of things to do.

What never fails to make you laugh?

The TV show What We Do in the Shadows.

What are people most surprised to learn about you? 

I have three guinea pigs who live in a large, Wild West–themed enclosure that includes a saloon, a general store, etc.

Pen or pencil? 

Somehow the free pens you get for voting in New York City seem to always last me until the next election, so definitely those.

Coffee or tea? 

Tea! I can’t handle caffeine.

Fall, winter, spring, or summer? 

Fall.

Life During and After Commonwealth

What was your first impression of Commonwealth and how did it map to your experience?

I’m very architect-brained, so it was all about the building. Going from a public school with huge, overly sanitized stretches of hallway, it was a real shock to suddenly be in this beautiful townhouse with all kinds of nooks for hanging out, where you’re allowed to gather. That, of course, remained true. I still have dreams that I’m walking through the Dartmouth lobby and it’s transformed into this dense forest of woodwork.

Tell us more about your capstone project at Commonwealth.

For my capstone, I wrote about Russian Constructivist art, specifically Alexander Rodchenko’s photography and his poster collaborations with the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. I was curious about how avant-garde artists dealt with the rise of Stalin, and although I got it totally wrong at the time, it set me on my current path. (Rodchenko features in one of my dissertation chapters, though my focus has shifted to his wife, the artist Varvara Stepanova.) 

When and how did you first become interested in your Ph.D. studies (art, literature, and film)? 

A family friend gave me my first camera when I was in middle school. Taking Rusty [Crump]’s photography class at Commonwealth then opened up my world to darkroom experimentation, which blew my mind. Ms. Siporin’s art history class gave me a good foundation for visual analysis, and the freedom to explore avant-garde art historical movements in my capstone was essential. In college, I discovered experimental cinema on sixteen millimeter film, which felt like magic to behold—so I’ve been chasing that high ever since!

Why twentieth-century avant-garde photography and film, specifically?

The early twentieth century is such a fascinating moment for me because I feel like it’s the beginning of the world we currently live in. It’s also a time in which photographic technology was progressing very quickly, giving people the ability to see things that they had never seen before (like a droplet of water suspended in mid-air or a horse with all its hooves off the ground at once). Modernization, coupled with the immense trauma of World War I, made people question reality in a fundamental way, and this visual questioning is what I find so compelling about the interwar avant-garde. What is real? What is the nature of representation? What does it mean to be human? Can the world be remade? These are the questions that film and photography ask with real urgency during the interwar period and which feel so important today.

What does a typical day look like for you? 

When I was preparing for my general exams during the last four months or so, it was eat, sleep, and read all day. Now I actually get to go outside. 

What’s your advice for young people interested in academia? 

I feel like young people today have it hammered into their brains that they won’t have a good, stable life unless they go into STEM. That is just not true. At the same time, though, nobody is going to make you a writer, a curator, or an artist—you have to go out and do it yourself, and keep doing it regardless of whatever social pushback you receive. Get your friends together, pool your resources, and start something DIY, be it a magazine, an exhibition space, mutual aid, etc. Academia is changing, and I believe that those kinds of spaces are increasingly looking for people who can also build something outside of the ivory tower.   

How do you spend your time outside of school?

Getting back to the magic of film, I’ve spent the last few years running the Film-Makers’ Cooperative here in New York City, which is America’s oldest and largest distributor of experimental cinema. It was co-founded in the 1960s by artists like Jonas Mekas and Andy Warhol, who wanted to build their own alternative to the Hollywood machine. Today we house over 5,000 films in our archive. Although it’s such a historic institution, the Coop relies on community, and we’re looking for people to volunteer or join our Board of Directors. Even if you have zero background in the art world, but you love film, that’s great—reach out to me and get involved!

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