September 20th, 2024
Doors open at 6:30 pm
Screening: 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Vtape, Bachir/Yerex Presentation Space
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 452 Toronto, Ontario M5V 3A8
The four events in the series, screenings accompanied by conversations with the artists, recontextualize feminist film and video work as constitutive of archival futures; a future imperfect: what will be seen to have been. Too often, feminism is narrated and historicized as wholly outdated/transphobic/racist, invisibilizing BIPOC feminists who were leaders in the Canadian feminist movement and its art practice. Feminists themselves may attempt to disavow previous iterations of the movement. And yet, many examples of early feminist video engage, or invent avant-garde strategies, while also engaging in intersectional interrogations. The delimiting of the history of feminisms implicitly excludes much of the intersectional cultural work that was central to feminist projects. This is especially pertinent as American hegemony – the undoing of abortion rights, the war on trans bodies -continues to inform local and national contexts in Canada. The films and videos in the programs come from the last three decades of the 20th century when feminist political organizing was inextricable with women’s cultural production. This screening series emerges from the SSHRC-funded project “The Personal is Digital: Remediating and Digitizing Canada’s Intergenerational Feminist & Queer Media Heritage,” co-directed by Drs. Marusya Bociurkiw and Jonathon Petrychyn, with additional curation by Lexie Corbett and administration by Em Barton.
Program #1: Bodies at Risk: The Archive is a Message to the Future
Conversation with Helen Lee following the screening moderated by curator Marusya Bociurkiw
Feminist videos from the 1980s and 90s present us with an uncanny sense of history repeating itself. The context of these works of female-born or masculine female body at risk is not always explicit. Perhaps we can only see it now: a message to the future. – Marusya Bociurkiw
Aqtuqsi (My Nightmare), Arnait Video Productions, 1996, 5mins
“I decided to put my aqtuqsi in video. It’s so interesting because it is not a nightmare or a regular dream. An aqtuqsi is something that can paralyze you while you’re sleeping.” – Mary Kunuk
Keltie’s Beard, Sara Halprin, 1983, 9mins
Before Keltie came along, the women in her family removed their facial hair and told no one. Keltie is proud of her beard and tells her story to us in this single-take film.
Forty Blocks, Cheryl L’Hirondelle, 1994, 7mins
Forty Blocks is a music video which chronicles a Metis woman’s journey from a home, where as a child she was abused, across town to her Kokum’s house where she was never allowed to go. The journey and the song it inspires the artist to reclaim her connection to her culture, her blood, and the earth.
Sally’s Beauty Spot, Helen Lee, 1990, 12mins
A large black mole above an Asian woman’s breast is a central image, juxtaposed against off-screen women’s voices and scenes form the 1960 Hollywood miscegenation melodrama The World of Suzie Wong.
Speakbody, Kay Armatage, 1980, 8mins
Using techniques from documentary, experimental and narrative cinema, this film juxtaposes multi-layered voices of women recounting their experiences with abortion. “In fifteen precise shots the film economically and evocatively gives voice to multiple views of various women’s experience of abortion, as testimony” – Kass Banning
Image credit: Aqtuqsi (My Nightmare), Arnait Video Productions (1996)
