What can community-focused, site-specific media exhibition look like during a pandemic? How can the social intimacy that has always been a part of artists’ cinema adapt to the context of physical distancing?

Rear Window Cinema transforms artists’ private windows (domestic and studio spaces) into ephemeral screens for rear-window projections that are externally visible to passersby on the street. Between the months of October and December, animation artists displayed animated letters to their neighbourhoods, using their windows as the creative point of departure and eventual surface for projection.

Above: Alija Hijaab’s contribution to Rear Window Cinema

Instead of inviting spectators or visitors, Rear Window Cinema invited local residents and passersby, who may chance upon these personal, animated poems on a walk through the neighbourhood. The project unfolded in a cascading series of waves, with each group of artists passing along experiences and insights to the next group.

The project was gradually updated and documented on Instagram at @rear_windowcinema, and it was featured in a profile here. Some of the resources that stemmed from this project include the following guideline for window considerations for artists assembled by project research assistant and artist participant Cameron Kletke.

Rear Window Cinema was a project I developed and curated in collaboration with VIVO Media Arts and flavourcel animation collective, with support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. When I saw a special grant call for COVID-related problem-solving, I knew this was an opportunity to support a vibrant local experimental cinema community that was struggling under gallery and media theatre closures. The majority of the flavourcel animation collective are former students, and for me this project was part of my personal commitment to give back to independent and experimental filmmakers who sustain my academic practice through research-creation collaboration.