About

Jenny Stark was born in Bellaire, Texas. She received her BFA in Photography from the University of Houston and received an MFA in Film/Video from the California Institute of the Arts. She is a Professor of Communications and Film at Sacramento State University. She is a professor for the TOPSS program currently offering Bachelor’s Degrees to incarcerated students at Folsom and Mule Creek State Prisons.

Directors Statements

Current Works
My most recent projects have examined sometimes dark places and stories that evoke comfort and nostalgia in American culture, like Horror, True Crime, The South, and the dead girl trope.

Work in the Delta
Driving up and down the central Delta’s winding levee roads makes me homesick for the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. In Downtown Isleton, it is easy to forget that the Bay Area is only 60 miles away. The boat ramp near Hogback Island resembles a swamp; I half expect to see an alligator. The constructed canals mirror the Gulf Coast bayous. The marshes are remnants of a time in the delta before the levees when covered entirely in wetlands.

At night in the Delta, cool breezes bluster in from the Bay Area at up to 45 mph, cooling off neighboring towns like Stockton, Sacramento, and Davis. Water laps against the sides of a levee and a corn field blowing wildly. The threat of natural and human-made disasters and the uncertain future of water supplies have created palpable anxiety and a sense of impermanence in this delicate place.

My work in the Delta concerns memory and loss of places passed by, forgotten, and left behind.

Earlier Experimental Films.
In these millennial works, created right before and just after 9/11, I reinterpret unstable footage from news updates and VHS tapes, transform stories and alter music to create my own personal horror movies that are a reaction to distant wars and violent weather.