Dena Kopolovich is a media maker from New York, currently living in Queens. Her multidisciplinary approach spans theater, film, and video installation. Combining the formal structure of cinema with the theatrical abstraction of space, her work is concerned with the alchemy between emotions and terrestrial experience. Dena is interested in connecting disparate elements as a creative ontology– finding interplay between science, mythology, pop culture, and personal essay. Her individual and collaborative work has appeared at the Made in NY Media Center by IFP, 122CC, Brick Theater, Exponential Festival, Fronterafest, The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s, Judson Church, The Living Gallery, and Dixon Place. She is a frequent collaborator of the theater company Fringe & Fur and a filmmaking instructor at Mono No Aware. She is an MFA candidate in the Integrated Media Arts program at Hunter College.
LABA project:
An experimental essay film about bags…and other, various sorts of vessels. Bags, bottles, bowls – the Birkin bag, the plastic “thank you” bag, the amphoras of the ancient wine trade. The film is about containers for holding, inspired by science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin’s essay, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” which re-contemplates human history by asserting technology is wrongfully defined by weapons.
If you could break something, what would it be?
As a kid I thought someone intentionally broke the arms and legs off the Greek and Roman sculptures at the Met. Now, I wonder what would happen if you accidentally knocked one over (as if it wasn’t already broken).