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It may be election season, but mudslinging isn’t limited to underhanded political campaigns—-there’s plenty of that in the art world, too. And in a new film collaboration between three D.C. photographers and a local curator/performance artist, one artist gets very, very dirty.

The plan for the video started with a photo (top) from prolific music photog Michael Andrade at Baby Bry Bry & The Apologistscassette release show at the Pinch last Monday. Melinda Diachenko (second from right) shared the image on Facebook, and Matt Dunn (a regular City Paper photo contributor) commented with a ♥. Diachenko responded: “Michael & Matt- I’ve always dreamed of being captured by each of you.” She meant it in a figurative sense, we imagine, but Dunn went literal.

“[Diachenko’s comment] had me thinking about the power relationships between photographers and subjects,” he says. “I wanted to subvert that dynamic by imagining Melinda’s dream and using a song from PriestsBodies and Control and Money and Power.”

In the video, edited by internationally recognized local photographer Chris Suspect, Diachenko sits on a bench to read. When she’s joined by Andrade, she enters a dream state that finds her “capturing” him and throwing lumps of soggy topsoil at his face. (The soundtrack, Priests’ “Modern Love/No Weapon,” is a contemporary response to David Bowie‘s “Modern Love.”)

Watch the video below, and don’t be afraid to get a little dirt under your nails.

Photo by Michael Andrade