FILM & MEDIA ART
Memory is Not Like Videotape (2019)
This project weaves together memories of my maternal family history – reimagined in a documentary style – through the combined narratives of my mother and her siblings as they recount childhood memories of growing up in small town New Brunswick in the 1950s and early 1960s. Transactive memory – a process of collectively encoding, storing, and retrieving knowledge to create fuller memories than any individual remembers on their own – looms large in this work. A family’s story is often passed down through generations in this manner.
This project maps out the early days of my family’s story in New Brunswick. In 1962 (or 1963, depending who you ask) the family moved west to Sault Ste Marie before eventually settling in and around the Hamilton area. I’ve recreated their memories through editing archival family photos with found footage, along with audio recordings of my family members recollecting their childhood. My discussions with them were conversational, rather than direct interviews, as I was interested in the day-to-day and smaller in-between moments, rather than focused on the major events of our family history. My fascination with memories, time, storytelling, and society’s oral traditions are a catalyst behind this work, as are the stories of my family, and especially the strong women – my mom and aunts – who survived difficult childhoods to flourish and improve their own lives and mine.
This work was exhibited as part of a group show with the Feminist Art Conference at Artscape Gibraltar Point on the Toronto Islands.
…film loop… (2019)
Just a lil’ experiment: a hand-drawn film loop that I created in a workshop at HAVN (Hamilton Audio Visual Node) led by Derek Jenkins.
MALE-DOMINATED (2018)
This large-scale outdoor public art sculpture was created using thousands of feet of hand-knit ethernet cable. This artwork considers historically denoted ‘women’s work’ – homemaking, sewing, crocheting etc. – and questions the continued under-representation of women in fields dominated by men in the present. Despite a high increase in the number of women graduating with STEM degrees (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math), the percentage of women working in these fields has barely changed in three decades – today’s Canadian STEM workforce includes only 22% women.
Exhibited at Supercrawl 2018.
Media: Knitting women into the picture
(From The Silhouette. Text by Rya Buckley. Photos by Kyle West.)
HOT AIR (2017)
Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts
A media installation – combining video projections, oversized balloons, found audio, and white noise – Hot Air was first exhibited in September 2017 at Centre[3] for Print and Media Arts, with the opening reception taking place during Supercrawl, a yearly arts & music festival drawing over a 100,000 visitors to Hamilton’s James Street North.
Using 2-channels of projected video and balloons to visually represent the ‘hot air’ directed at women in our society, this work also includes misogynistic headlines, audio of news reporters covering outrageously sexist stories, and sound clips of public figures – celebrities, politicians, athletes, and television pundits – using their platform to disparage women.
Funding support for exhibiting Hot Air at Centre[3] for Print & Media Arts was generously provided by the Ontario Arts Council.
MEMORY IS KEY (2017)
Exhibited as part of OPTICKS PRESENTS: “A PORTRAIT OF HAMILTON‘S EAST MOUNTAIN”
OPTICKS, a monthly projection and light-art initiative, encourages people of all backgrounds and skill-sets to actively make/learn/teach/explore all things based around light/projection art.
This group show, conceptualized by John Smith and Andrew O’Connor, was based around documenting, re-interpreting, and creating an experimental and abstract representation of Hamilton’s East Mountain using light, audio, and experimental techniques.
My piece revolved around the idea that our memories are key to how we feel about a place. Using social media, a crowd-sourced trip down memory lane produced quotes and locations from current and former residents of the East Mountain – wispy recollections that paint a picture of the area over time, from those who called this area home at some point in their lives. I then re-created/re-constructed the memories that were shared with me by hand using found images and an overhead projector. The results were filmed and included in the show at HAVN along with a sculptural component comprised of hundreds of keys sourced through social media.
Check out more about the show here – https://myalbum.com/album/HUlUTqFcdNu8
(Documentation by Alejandro)
FOUND IN TRANSLATION {The Process Project} (2017)
This project meditates on what it means to be an artist, and our connectedness through the arts, through exploring the creative process. Diverse Hamilton artists engage in their artistic practice, taking works of art from concept to completion. Featuring the creation process and talents of: EMAY (hip-hop/rap song writing), Jojo Harley (silk-screening), Tony Hoang (photography), Petra Matar (visual art), and Tanya Cronin & Janessa Pudwell (dance). This project received funding from Hamilton’s City Enrichment Fund.
This project was exhibited at HAVN – Hamilton Audio-Visual Node in June 2017.
YOUTH MODALITIES (2017)
I participated as an artist in a research study between Brock University & the University of Glasgow that explored the digital lives of youth and how they spend their time online. In the end I was asked to create an artistic response to the project. This video represents my take on the activities and the process.
THE MIND’S EYE [with the DAV(e) Collective] (2016)
The Mind’s Eye – a site-specific collaborative video installation exhibited at the Factory Media Centre, created with other members of the DAV(e) Collective.
The Mind’s Eye focuses on what we ‘see’ in the world versus how we see it in our minds, and the disconnect that exists between ‘reality’ and how we process it internally. Through looking into our eyes, audiences were treated to the DAV(e) Collective’s mental imagery, insecurities, fears, and the dark depths of our psyches.
” … we are not just looking at a scene from outside; we are always in it. People, you might say, are biological sensing devices, placed in an infinitely complex three-dimensional environment. What we see, subjectively, is always related to what we are interested in … the eye is attached to the mind.” — Martin Gayford, writing on David Hockney
LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD [with the DAV(e) Collective] (2016)
In August 2016 the DAV(e) collective was commissioned by Hamilton’s Woman Abuse Working Group (WAWG, a coalition of 20+ agencies working to end violence against women) to facilitate an art project for women who are survivors of domestic and/or sexual violence. We led them through the creation of mixed-media collages, and with their permission, filmed the process. The artwork and our short documentary video were exhibited at the Art Gallery of Hamilton, in the Jean and Ross Fischer Gallery.
EVERY SECOND COUNTS (2015)
Every Second Counts involved media artists and local citizen participants collaborating and co-creating personal videos around a theme of time, and the inevitability of time passing us by. I created this project and secured funding for this project as a member of the Factory Media Centre’s programming committee, and then participated in the project as an artist and facilitator. We offered community members hands-on mentorship session facilitated by media artists who shared the basics of visual storytelling, and then mentored participants throughout the creative process. A culminating two-channel video installation was created from the collected participant videos, and from documentary footage of the creative collaboration process, filmed at each of our community mentorship sessions. We engaged diverse community members through partnerships with the Women’s Centre of Hamilton, Culture for Kids in the Arts, Hamilton Artists Inc, and the Immigrant Women’s Centre. In the exhibition, the two videos were displayed simultaneously, one full screen and the other fragmented via projection mapping. An audio-scape included the voices of our participants, ambient background music, and clocks phasing in and out of time. Public exhibitions took place in September during Supercrawl and Culture Days, and in November at the Hamilton Public Library (Central).
Mr. Used (2014)
An elderly shopkeeper looks back with regret and longing, while memories of beauty lurk around every corner. When we write our own tragedies, do we have anyone to blame but ourselves?
This film was produced during the Hamilton 24-Hour Film Festival, 2014, and was shot against the backdrop of the locally renowned ‘Mr. Used’ store. The cast and crew created an intimate story amidst the piles of dusty old junk in the large warehouse space. Mr. Used features the acting talents of Gord Jackson & Karijn de Jong, and includes the previously unreleased song, ‘Zabriskie Point’, from Hamilton dream pop band, SIANspheric.
Aurally {Official Trailer}
The city is filled with stories. Some exist silently in the nightscape, while others invite us in. AURALLY ponders solitude, loneliness and un/happiness against a backdrop of late night radio and beautiful music.
This award-winning debut short film screened at several festivals, both in Canada and internationally, and also secured a Canadian distribution deal.