Artist

Joann Latremouille

After more than fifteen years practicing as a landscape architect, people and communities started to become more important to me than either design and form by itself. I turned to video as a medium that was both suitable for telling people's stories, and relatively easy to learn.
My concerns to date have been to let the wisdom of ordinary people be heard, and to show how that wisdom often contradicts assumptions made by the professionals who shape the cities we live in. Both STREET PORTRAIT which is centered on a working class community and PORTRAITS OF A VILLAGE which describes an upper middle class community document the struggles that are necessary if ordinary people are to maintain humane communities in the face of alienated planning decisions.
The latest videos a bilingual pair, "Conservation and Change" and "Conservation: le passé conjugué au présent" are training documents for the managers of heritage railway stations to enable them to better appreciate and care for the structures under their charge. From my point of view these tapes continue my concern with using video to promote interesting and humane communities, because respect for the builders of our past is important for maintaining self respect in the present.

Artist Code: 362

Videography

Street Portrait

1993, 25:00 minutes, colour, English