This public talk (19-May-2024) introduces Maya Deren’s film Meshes of the Afternoon and Věra Chytilová’s film Daisies at VIFF, as a continuation of their popular Pantheon series dedicated to the Sight & Sound list of “greatest films of all time.” What do these two films have in common, other than being directed by women? I look forward to offering some framing remarks and hearing from audience members during the post-screening discussion. Screening time and tickets are available here.
How can researchers and artists develop meaningful ethical practices around storytelling methods? What responsibilities do researchers and creative practitioners have to participant stories they gather, store, and share? This virtual roundtable, presented by ECU’s Research Ethics Board, features speakers Aaron Nelson-Moody (Coast Salish art and design), Candace Brunette-Debassige (Indigenous education and academic policy), and Ranjan Datta (community-based disaster research). It was an honour to organize and facilitate this virtual roundtable as part of my work with the ECU Research Ethics Board.
Continue reading “Virtual Roundtable: Ethics of Storytelling”
This public talk (December-21-2023) opens the VIFF’s December 2023 series The Wonders, following a screening of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937, Walt Disney Studio). The talk discusses the pivotal role that Snow White played in the history of the Disney studio and theatrical feature-length animation more broadly. Just as the film’s titular dwarfs descended into the mines to source lustrous diamonds, hundreds of workers entered Walt Disney’s animation studio between 1934 and 1937 to produce and polish a new vision of spectacular, expensive animation.
This public talk (August-18-2023) is featured in VIFF Centre’s summer 2023 series Back to the 80s.
After decades of postwar decline, the early 1980s seemed to spell the end of feature-length animation in the United States, and Walt Disney Studios considered shuttering its animation division. Yet by the end of the decade, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released to immense box office success and wide critical acclaim, marking the beginning of an American animation renaissance. Why did a studio synonymous with wholesome family entertainment take a risk on a technically daring film crammed with slapstick comedy and sexual innuendo? Following the film’s detective protagonist, this public talk investigates the mystery of how Hollywood animation went from the brink of collapse to one of the world’s top theatrical attractions. Toontown will never be the same!
Animation is rarely featured in books and catalogues on experimental cinema, and figurative animation is almost entirely excluded. Why? One of my goals as a media scholar and curator is to promote figurative animation as a tradition with a rich history of daring artistic experimentation. This past month (April 2023) I presented my recent writing on experimental figurative animation at the Society for Cinema and Media Studies conference in Denver.
Continue reading “Conference Talk: “Elusive Flesh: Figure and Body in Experimental Animation””
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.
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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”
Alla Gadassik: Media Scholar and Animation Curator 