Lockhart spent the last year looking at the lives of workers in Maine's Bath Iron Works. Lunch Break features 42 workers as they take their midday break in a corridor stretching nearly the entire shipyard. Contrary to her previous films, the camera is untethered and, as it slowly moves down the corridor, we experience what was a brief interval in the workday schedule expanded into a sustained gaze. Lined with lockers, the hallway seems not only an industrial nexus but also a social one, its surfaces containing a history of self-expression and customization. Over the course of the lunch break we see workers engaged in a wide range of activities – reading, sleeping, talking – in addition to actually eating their midday meal. The soundtrack is a composition designed in collaboration with composer Becky Allen and filmmaker James Benning, in which industrial sounds, music, and voices slowly merge and intertwine. Together, picture and sound provide an extended meditation on a moment of respite from productive labor.
US 2008, HDCAM, 83 minutes
Producers: Andrew Fierberg, Clay Russel Lerner
Director of photography: Richard Rutkowski
Music: Becky Allen
Editing: James Benning
Excecutive producers: Blum & Poe, Gladstone Gallery, Neugerriemschneider
Sharon Lockhart was born in Norwood, Massachusetts. Her films and photographic work have been widely exhibited at international film festivals and in museums, cultural institutions, and galleries around the world. She is currently an associate professor at the University of Southern California's Roski School of Fine Arts.
