_{Dustin Lawrence ice fishing in Igloolik, Nunavut, in 2024}

This month, Vtape says goodbye to Dustin Lawrence, who is leaving his position as Vtape’s Technical & Collections Manager. Dustin started at Vtape working on artist intake and distribution, and over time developed enormous expertise in digitization and other technical areas instrumental in preserving and expanding our collection. Over the past eight years at Vtape, Dustin has been a significant contributor to several major digitization projects, including the completion of digitization of Vtape’s analogue tape holdings, work on Kyoko Michishita’s videos and films, and large jobs for clients such as Dance Collection Danse, the imagineNATIVE Festival, McMaster University, the Ontario Archives, and innumerable individual artists and producers. 

“When I first started interacting with educational markets through educational streaming purchases and DVD rentals, I could see that’s where change was going to happen — through the education of young minds looking to gain knowledge and information for a better future for everyone,” 

– Lawrence from his curated program Safe Keeping: Vtape and the Artists Whose Works Live in Our Care.

Committed to mentorship and education, Dustin has trained many students studying collections management at the University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, and Concordia University. He has represented Vtape at film festivals nationally and internationally. On recent trips to Igloolik and Montreal, he set up digitization suites and trained the Isuma team in their use. This crucial work ensures that community recordings focused on traditional methods and ceremonies will be available for future generations.

We will remain connected to Dustin as an artist and editor, and we wish him all the best in his future endeavours. We thank him for his dedication and invaluable contributions to the organization! In celebration of Dustin, we streamed his title, Crying Thumb (2016). This commissioned trailer, styled in the classic 1970s PSA format, humorously demonstrates how cell phone use during a film screening can impact those who have travelled long distances to attend. Enjoy!