Ottawa media artist Penny McCann's body of work spans twenty years and encompasses both dramatic and experimental films and videos. Her narrative works (The Sisters, The Fires of Joanna, Helpless, and The Professor and the Blind Girl) involve stories from the past told in highly codified ways. Her experimental works utilize film and video imagery to create shifts in subjectivity, memory, and perspective and include Away for Christmas, Marshlands, Lake Ontario (in my head), and 02.02.02.

Penny’s work has been exhibited extensively at festivals and galleries nationally and internationally, including the Centre national d’art contemporain (Grenoble, France), Oberhausen International Short Film Festival (Oberhausen, Germany), the Owens Art Gallery (Sackville, New Brunswick), the Images Festival (Toronto), the Canadian Film Institute (Ottawa), and the Festival International du film sur l’art (Montreal).

A long-time activist/worker in the Canadian media and visual arts community, Penny served as president of the Independent Film and Video Alliance from 1996-1999. Penny lives and works in Ottawa, where, since 2004, she has worked as Director of SAW Video Media Art Centre. In 2014, in recognition of her contribution to the Ontario artist-run community, Penny was awarded the ARCCO Achievement Award.

Penny’s film work is distributed through the CFMDC in Toronto.

Artist Code: 093