Hannah Levy’s Adaptive Structures
Documentary Short
UsA (2024)
role: Director & Producer
production company: Art21
Following artist Hannah Levy as she works toward her solo exhibition titled “Cruth,” this short documentary explores the human anxieties about our bodies’ fleshy materiality and vulnerability. Hannah’s work references modernist design, adaptive structures, and the natural world, while recontextualizing them to draw attention to how our bodies interact with the built environment.
Screenings
American Documentary and Animation Film Festival 2025
Artist Statement
It was such a treat to get a glimpse into Hannah’s process - not just the inventive ways she works with materials, but also how her mind works to combine and recontextualize references drawn from a wide range of fields such as our built environment, fruit and vegetables, and design theory and history. While Hannah is often known for her sculptures made out of steel and silicon that evoke vulnerable flesh constantly being acted upon, I feel lucky that we had the chance to film with Hannah while she was introducing glass into her practice. The glass pieces freeze the forces they are subjected to in time, and their materiality further heightens our awareness of our bodies’ vulnerability. Through the intimate, fluid cinematography, we hope to give viewers the same visceral experience as if they were looking at Hananh’s work in person, and the mix of collage and hand-drawn animations is our attempt to see the world through Hananh’s eyes.