Collage of photos from the Source Family photo albums

Straight from The Source: The Source Family Archive with Isis Aquarian

Wed, 03/22/2023 - 5:00pm
Event
Location:
Special Research Collections

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Join UCSB Library for a reception and conversation with Isis Aquarian about her life with the Source Family, a commune in Los Angeles in the early 1970s based on natural food, spiritual practices and psychedelic rock, and how she came to place the commune's archival materials with UCSB Library.  Jodi Willie and Charlie Kitchings, her collaborators on a feature documentary and the new book Family: The Source Family Scrapbook, will also join the conversation.

Event will include film clips from the documentary and rare photographs from the Source Family Archive housed at the Library. The Source Family archive is part of UCSB Library's American Religions Collection.

This event is in conjunction with Lifting the Veil, or, How the Stars Aligned for Isis, Hermes, and Diana to Vanquish Satan and Usher in the Aquarian Age, an exhibition of archival materials from UCSB Library's American Religions Collection.

Event and exhibition are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. Directions and parking information here.

This event will be photographed or recorded.

Isis Aquarian

Author Isis Aquarian (Charlene Peters) was the Source Family’s designated documentarian. As one of Father Yod’s 14 wives, she photographed and filmed Father and the Source Family, recorded audio, maintained scrapbooks, and helped manage the Family business. Since the release of The Source Family documentary and her award-winning memoir, The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and The Source Family, she has produced a record “Isis: The Crone” (distributed through Drag City), supervised the release of other Source Family music through Drag City, created a Source Family comic book and her own tee shirt line. She has written for and appeared in Flaunt Magazine. She is co-founder and Vice-President of the Source Foundation, and was the associate producer of The Source Family documentary. She has spoken at the International Intentional Communal Conference Association. Isis currently resides in Kailua, Hawaii and is 80 years old. She has a daughter, Saturna, and a granddaughter.

Jodi Wille is a filmmaker, book publisher, editor and curator whose work explores subcultural groups through the lens of character-driven stories and archives. She is co-director of "The Source Family" documentary (2013) and director of the forthcoming feature documentary "Welcome Space Brothers," the story of Unarius Academy of Science. She is co-founder and editor of Process Media and Otherworld books, editor of "The Source: The Untold Story of the Source Family, Father Yod, and Ya Ho Wa 31 (2007, Process Media), and co-editor of "Family: The Source Family Scrapbook."

Charlie Kitchings is an independent curator and chef. He founded AMBACH & RICE in 2009 and organized over fifty exhibits during the gallery’s six -year tenure in Seattle and Los Angeles. He recently launched Orchestre, a destination kitchen and dining space that aims to foster conversation and collaboration across disciplines. Charlie is the co-editor of "Family: The Source Family Scrapbook" (Sacred Bones / Otherworld 2022). He currently lives in the Columbia River Gorge with his wife and children.