[Update: the position has been filled] Animate Materials Workshop is hiring a research assistant for a project on Indigenous storytelling for animation. Supported by interviews with contemporary animation producers, this project explores the possibilities and barriers of adapting oral stories for animation, with a focus on contemporary Inuit animation.
Continue reading “Hiring Student RA – Indigenous Storytelling in Animation”
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.
It’s official, I completed my Certificate in Restorative Justice (focus on Education)! This program is designed with an option to complete in one year, but it took me three years — between raising the funds, allowing myself time to really process the material, and coping with unexpected developments at my institution (which served as the primary case study and focus of my coursework). While the program itself was not necessarily a good fit, studying with Christianne Paras and Krystal Glowatski was a privilege. These amazing mentors were careful to remind us that restorative justice is not a panacea, particularly when it comes to contending with systemic and institutional violence. Everything I’ve learned has been transformative for my relationships with students, my classroom spaces, and the kinds of collegial initiatives I’ve sought out since then. I also get a kick at adding SFU to my list of ‘alumna’ institutions.
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””
Last year I encouraged artist and curator Celina de Leon to adapt her moving-image work I am the same, I am always changing into a triptych installation. Celina first developed this project as a speculative response to the work of Ana Mendieta in my course on avant-cinema histories. On November-10-2022 it debuted as part of Celina’s first solo show, at the RBC Media Gallery. I am proud and grateful to have written a short curatorial text for this bold and vulnerable work.
Continue reading “Curatorial text: “I am the same, I am always changing””
I’ve been following the Giant Incandescent Resonating Animation Festival (GIRAF) remotely for years, but it wasn’t until they went online during the pandemic that I got to experience their wonderful programming and community feel. This year, I was giddy to be a guest curator and judge with the festival. During the festival, I presented a special programme devoted to animating graphite that came out of the Animate Materials Workshop.
Continue reading “Announcement: Guest Curator and Jury Member at GIRAF’18”
How can animation explore nomadic and indigenous cosmologies?
Continue reading “Event: Nomadic Cosmologies: Conversation with Alisi Telengut”
I’m stunned and grateful to receive the 2022 SCMS award for best essay in an edited collection. My colleague Perrin Grauer published a lovely profile of the essay and the award here. The published essay, devoted to a feminist history of film editing, owes much to my editors James Leo Cahill and Joshua Malitsky, as well as the staff of RGALI and Muzei Kino archives in Moscow.
Alla Gadassik: Media Scholar and Animation Curator 