Video

Sunnybrook

Lorna Boschman and Persimmon Blackbridge

1995, 45:00 minutes, colour, English

TAPECODE 098.09

Complex and fast-paced editing animate the sculpture and text of this story about conditions within "The Sunnybrook Institution for the Mentally Handicapped". The result is a cross between medieval European sculpture and North American comic books, with dialogue that is laced with humour, anger and irony. The narrator is hired at "Sunnybrook" because she says she was on staff at a clinic where she was actually an outpatient. The inmates she meets are individuals with various abilities, disabilities, and strategies for survival in a dehumanizing environment.

Based on Blackbridge's visual art exhibit and book, Sunnybrook: a True Story with Lies, this work tells the story of Diane, a one to one counselor for adults whose work makes her question the validity of the institution. Sunnybrook is crucially based on Blackbridge's experience during her period of employment at a mental hospital , Woodlands Institution, in the 70s.

The work is produced and directed by Persimmon Blackbridge and Lorna Boschman. Sculpture and writing is by Persimmon Blackbridge.

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