Susan Kleckner was a Feminism filmmaker, photographer, performance artist, and writer active from the late 1960s until 2010 and based in New York City.
She directed several films during this period. In 1970, she co-directed the 16 mm film Three Lives, often considered the first documentary about women produced by an all-woman crew, narrating three women's stories of coming out. Included in this film was footage of the Christopher Street Gay Liberation March, an early event in the LGBT rights movement of which very little known footage exists.
Her next documentary, in 1972, was Another Look at the Miami Convention: A Work In Progress, centered on the presidential candidacy of Shirley Chisholm, the first woman and African American to seek a presidential nomination. It featured the voices of feminists Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and Bella Abzug.
Birth Film, a short documentary self-directed by Kleckner, premiered at the Whitney Museum in 1973. The film depicted a woman, Kirstin Booth Glen, giving birth to her son at home, and was a statement on reproductive rights. Reviewers described feeling sick due to Birth Film
She taught at the International Center of Photography from 1982, teaching courses such as "New York at Night", "Visual Diary", and "Roll-a-Day".
She led workshops at the Pratt Institute, New York University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Returning to New York City, she initiated Windowpeace, a one-year performance on West Broadway involving 41 women artists which ran from December 1986 to January 1987. The women individually spent 7 days in voluntary incarceration within a 5 by 6.5-foot display area behind bulletproof glass. The space had a loft bed, portable toilet, television monitor, video tape player, telephone, hot plate, and a curtain for occasional privacy. Petitions to promote peace and other activities were organised outside the glass. The project was highly acclaimed and won the Susan B. Anthony Award from the National Organization for Women' New York chapter in 1988, which honored Grassroots activists.
In February 1988, Kleckner suffered from a mental health breakdown due to her bipolar disorder, and spent time in a locked mental health ward. During this time, she photographed her experiences, and was awarded for these photographs in 1997 by the New York Foundation for the Arts Catalogue Project Grant for women photographers over 40 years old.
In 1999, she attended The New Seminary for Interfaith Studies, interested in spirituality. In 2002, she was ordained as Minister of Divinity at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and chose the title of Rainbow Reverend.
Her work was donated to the W. E. B. Du Bois Library in January 2012. In 2014, her work formed the visual core of the exhibition Documents from Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp, which paid tribute to the women who camped at Greenham Common.
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