Ming of Harlem : twenty one storeys in the air
A 71-minute film exploring the story of Antoine Yates and his cohabitation, in a high-rise social housing apartment in Harlem, New York, with a 500-pound tiger called Ming and a seven-foot alligator called Al.
- Submitting institution
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Kingston University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 32-113-1749
- Type
- L - Artefact
- Location
- FID Marseille International Film Festival, Marseille, France (premiere)
- Open access status
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- Month of production
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- Year of production
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Directed by Philip Warnell, Ming of Harlem: Twenty One Storeys in the Air explores the story of Antoine Yates and his cohabitation, in a high-rise social housing apartment in Harlem, New York, with a 500-pound tiger called Ming and a seven-foot alligator called Al. The discovery of this cohabitation in2003 led to public outcry and disbelief. Through the71-minute film, Warnell frames Yates’s recollections within a poetic and zoological study of Ming and Al, re-imaging the circumstances of the wild inside.
Warnell conducted a range of research methods to develop and direct the film, conducting interviews with Yates and experts in animal-human relations in areas including psychology, philosophy (in particular, philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy) and anthrozoology. This research underpinned the film’s intellectual and cinematic framing, as Warnell collaborated with an architect on the partial reimagining of Yates’ apartment inside zoos on the Isle of Wight and Oxford, to create sets for a tiger and alligator, turning the apartment itself into a protagonist. Warnell also collaborated with a musical composer for screen signatures, and with Nancy, who produced a 101-line poem, ‘Oh The Animals of Language’,forthe film. Theproject came together asa collection of screened and textual thought-events transcending existing nature documentary, art world and academic formats.
The research was enabled byfunding from the Wellcome Trust; Arts Council England; Flanders Audiovisual Fund (VAF), Belgium and FDR, Belgium (experimental film fund). Ming of Harlem premiered at FIDMarseille2014 International Film Festival, where it was awarded the Georges de Beauregard International Award, andreceived the Universities Culturgest Award at IndieLisboa — Festival Internacional de Cinema, Portugal, in2015. The film has received significant press, academic journal coverage and cinema/VOD distribution. It has been included in a number ofexhibitions, including as a two-screen installation in Making Nature at London’s Wellcome Collection(2016) and Tiger Lives at Coreana Museum of Art, Seoul(2020).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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