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Alla Gadassik: Media Scholar and Animation Curator

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Book Publication – “Interlaced: Animation & Textiles”

Celebrating the global launch of Interlaced: Animation and Textiles (2025), a lavishly illustrated print catalogue that documents and critically expands on the popular exhibition at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre. This book explores the relationship between animation and textiles across over a century of media art, from early cinema experiments to contemporary algorithmically generated images. Curator Alla Gadassik’s deeply researched text is accompanied by captivating exhibition photographs, high-quality reproductions of all artworks and additional archival materials, and a Director’s foreword.

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Book Publication – “Graphite: Animated Traces”

My short monograph Graphite: Animated Traces (Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, 2024) profiles the material and cultural history of graphite as a creative medium, with close attention to its important role in contemporary art and animation.⁠ The book highlights the medium’s temperament and significance by turning to the unfolding and provisional status of the drawn moving image, considering graphite as a medium of emergent thought, contemplation, tender intimacy and impermanence.⁠

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Exhibition: “Interlaced: Animation and Textiles” (Dec. 7, 2024 – Apr. 27, 2025)

The culmination of my curatorial residency at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery | Len Lye Centre, this is the first major exhibition dedicated to the reciprocal relationship between animation and textile art. Transforming the centre into a series of gallery and cinema spaces, Interlaced: Animation and Textiles brings together moving-image works fashioned from textile forms and materials alongside fibre works inspired by animation. Artists featured in the exhibition explore ways of embroidering with projected light, quilting celluloid films, and weaving digital tapestries.

 ARTISTS:
Faig Ahmed (Azerbaijan), Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley (UK), Jon Michael Corbett (Canada), Kelly Egan (Canada), Sione Faletau (Aotearoa, Tonga), Footprints Studio (UK), Sabrina Gschwandtner (USA), Marguerite Harris (France), Len Lye (Aotearoa), Aubrey Longley-Cook (USA), Jodie Mack (USA), Huw Messie (USA), Lindsay McIntyre (Canada), Miracle de Mille (France), Ng’endo Mukii (USA), Kate Nartker (USA), Ishu Patel (Canada), Pathé Studio (UK), Izabella Pruska-Oldenhof (Canada), Harry Smith (USA), Caitlin Thompson (Canada), Vaimaila Urale (Aotearoa, Samoa), Jennifer West (USA), Jordan Wong (USA), Shaheer Zazai (Canada), Studio Zeitguised (Germany)

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Public Talk: “Fantasia” and the Colours of Visual Music

I’m introducing this matinee screening of Walt Disney studio’s Fantasia (1940) at VIFF Theatre (Dec-14-2025) and moderating a post-screening discussion of the film. Looking forward to discussing this film in the context of Visual Music cinema, colour on screen, and feminized labour in the studio’s ink-and-paint department and animation at large .

Guest-Curating for Rarebit Early Animation Wiki

Nic Sammond, founder of Rarebit Early Animation Wiki, invited me to curate this month’s issue of new entries. The spotlight theme is a celebration of direct animation innovator Len Lye, whose birthday is in July. Rarebit now has a biographical entry on Len Lye and an entry on his film 𝘒𝘢𝘭𝘦𝘪𝘥𝘰𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘱𝘦. The topical link of the month spotlights the Len Lye Centre, which is also celebrating its tenth anniversary this month. The chosen resource of the month is a catalogue for Zelluloid, a landmark 2010 exhibition devoted to cameraless film that preceded the recent wave of interest in celluloid film. All entries were cowritten with Beatrice Moldoveneau, an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto holding a work-study position with Rarebit.

Public Talk: “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul”

I’m introducing this matinee screening of 𝘈𝘭𝘪: 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘳 𝘌𝘢𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘭 (1974) at VIFF Vancity Theatre (June-15-2025) and moderating a post-screening discussion of the film. Looking forward to discussing its portrait of tenderness and human connection against a backdrop of social isolation and xenophobia. Since the screening takes place on Father’s Day, it’s fitting to acknowledge (a content warning, of sorts) its historic place in the German New Wave, popularized at the time under the slogan “Papa’s cinema is dead.” Tickets can be purchased here.

Conference Paper: “Inuit Storytelling in Contemporary Animation”

I presented this research-in-progress at the annual conference of the Film and Media Studies Association of Canada (FMSAC) at Queen’s University (May 28, 2025). My presentation discussed the adaptation of Inuit stories for contemporary animation, identifying the opportunities and challenges of interpreting oral storytelling through this media form.

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International Thesis Review: Tokyo University of the Arts

It was an honour and delight to receive an invitation from the famed GEIDAI animation program at Tokyo University of the Arts, to serve as an international reviewer for their Masters thesis projects. This animation school is bursting with creative energy, storytelling sincerity, and — under the leadership of the brilliant Koji Yamamura — fully committed to artisanal animation.

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Virtual Roundtable: Ethics of Accessibility

ECU-REB event poster with event title and photographs of three roundtable participants.

How can researchers and community-engaged artists centre accessibility and equitable participation of disabled participants, when selecting research or creative methods, designing their recruitment materials, or establishing consent processes? What responsibilities should researchers and creative practitioners have to disabled participants, whose experiences or stories they solicit or share? This virtual roundtable, presented by ECU’s Research Ethics Board (February 11, 2025), featured three participants speaking through lenses of crip theory, health design principles, and disability advocacy in the arts.

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Animate Materials Workshop receives major research grant!

Sharing overdue news that I was awarded a major SSHRC Insight Grant (2024- 2029) to support the Animate Materials Workshop for the next 5 years. This funding will allow me to continue partnerships with brilliant artists, scholars, film festivals and art galleries interested in exploring material history and culture through animation. Emily Carr University published an announcement and profile of the project here. I have so many people to thank for supporting this work, when it was developed largely on my own time on top of full-time teaching. Two people I can’t thank by name are two external peer reviewers, who wrote thoughtful and generous reviews of the application. They understood the project and clearly helped the jury appreciate its potential.

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