On January 22nd (2023) I participated in opening a new screening series at Vancity Theatre dedicated to the latest Sight & Sound poll of the “Greatest Movies of All Time.” The series programmer invited me to introduce Chantal Akerman’s 1975 film Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, which emerged as the top film in the latest iteration of the poll. This result delighted many cinephiles, while eliciting condescending dismissal from some. As a scholar and curator who remains dubious about the merits of the Sight & Sound poll, I took the opportunity to frame this remarkable film for audiences and celebrate its challenge to the established film canon.
Continue reading “Public Talk: On Chantal Akerman’s “Jeanne Dielman…””
When do feminist artists put their body on the line? Is decolonial feminist art praxis possible in the art institution?
“Art in the Flesh: A Public Class” was a two-part special event co-organized by Dr. Sue Shon and me for This Exhibition is not an Exhibition (curated by Valérie Walker and Patryk Tom) at the Libby Leshgold Gallery in Vancouver (Canada). Our two public classes within the gallery space were an experiment to imagine and practice an anticolonial pedagogy that bridges, among other contradictions, the arts university and the arts gallery.
Continue reading “Event: “Art in the Flesh: A Public Class””
On October-1-2022 I gave a public talk on artistic production and/as cultural memory at the ACT Arts Centre (Maple Ridge), in connection with their exhibition Labour and Memory: Ukrainian-Canadian Contexts.
Continue reading “Public Talk: Rites of Passage and Return”
How can animation explore nomadic and indigenous cosmologies?
Continue reading “Event: Nomadic Cosmologies: Conversation with Alisi Telengut”
On May-27-2022 I had a chance to present the Rear-Window Cinema project at a curated speaker series organized by the Digital Arts Community extension of SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics and Interactive Techniques). The theme of this particular edition was “Expanded and Experimental Animation.”
Continue reading “Talk: SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community”
On May-12-2022, I co-chaired the following workshop with Malini Guha (Carleton University). The workshop included presentations by Sue Shon (Emily Carr University of Art + Design) and Benjamin Woo (Carleton University). Click continue for more details.
Continue reading “Workshop Event: Alternative Grading”
On February-4-2022 I’ll be moderating a virtual book conversation with Jordan Schonig, author of the book The Shape of Motion: Cinema and the Aesthetics of Movement (2022), and Ryan Pierson, author of the book Figure and Force in Animation Aesthetics (2019). Click on “Continue” for description.
Continue reading “Book Event: How to Talk About Movement”
For the 2013 Society for Cinema and Media Studies (SCMS) conference, I organized a panel devoted to the technique of generating movement in animation. It seems obvious that animation is particularly preoccupied with creating movement, and that animators develop different techniques (or strategies) to “make things move.” But what kinds of movement are chosen or emphasized in the animation process? And how do different kinds of filmmaking techniques influence the range and qualities of movement that are animated on the screen? The panel included four talks that considered the role of mechanical and electronic models movement in the history of animation, focusing on case studies that spanned early film, classical drawn animation, and early computer animation traditions. That talk was later published as an article.
As a writing genre, the academic cover letter is surrounded by too much mystery, and it elicits unmerited levels of anxiety. Since we’re talking about academic writing in general, that’s saying something. As part of my fellowship at Northwestern University’s Graduate Writing Place, I developed a professionalization workshop on the dreaded “job letter,” geared specifically toward students in my department of media studies. Continue reading “Workshop: “Writing the Academic Cover Letter””
Alla Gadassik: Media Scholar + Animation Curator 