Bill Santen

Rocko Ramdin was filmed over the period of one year and is presented as a four-channel video. Ramdin, born in Guyana, South America, and currently living in Castle Hill, Bronx, immigrated to America in 1990 at age 20. In the video, he becomes the tour guide to a Bronx, New York sport fishing subculture. Fishing is seen as a culturally diverse social bond, a brutal group sport, a solitary, meditative practice, and as a connection to nature and family. Filmed with an SD handheld camera, a charismatic and intimate portrait slowly emerges as the artist is brought closer into Ramdin’s world. The film is part of an ongoing project related to the Bronx, New York, where the artist has lived and worked since 2012.

About the Artist

Bill Santen earned his MFA from Columbia University in 2011 and his BA from the University of Kentucky in 2009. His career began as the songwriter and musician “birddog” and he released several records from 1995-2005. In 2015, Santen’s first solo exhibition of film and video opened at Sgorbati Projects in New York. Elsewhere, his projects have been exhibited at MOMA Learning Center, Queens Museum of Art, and Bronx River Art Center.  Abroad, his work has been presented in Vienna, Austria; Lodz, Poland; and the Overgaden Museum of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark.  He is currently an artist in residence in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.