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Alla Gadassik: Media Scholar and Animation Curator

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Public Talk: “Snow White” and the fairytale studio.

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.

Protected: “Animate Materials Workshop” SSHRC-IDG Research-Creation Portfolio

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Announcement: Guest Curator and Jury Member at OIAF 2023

Looking forward to presenting a new curated programme of animated shorts at the Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) 2023 and serving as a member of the international jury! The programme will be dedicated to animating ink, and will be accompanied by an audience introduction and a printed curatorial essay.

Public Talk: “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and the American Animation Renaissance

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!

Completed: Certificate in Restorative Justice

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.

Conference Talk: “Elusive Flesh: Figure and Body in Experimental Animation”

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.

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Exhibition: “Flesh & Bone: Bella Blanca and Kelsey Brill-Funk”

Bella Blanca and Kelsey Brill-Funk took part in my “Material Animacy” course last year, which is linked to the Animate Materials Workshop but is open to artists working in any media. Bella chose bone as their material collaborator in ceramics, whereas Kelsey pursued a deep dive into hair as a photographer. This month, their work that emerged from the course was featured in a two-artist exhibition Flesh & Bone. I was proud and happy to have written the exhibition text for this show.

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Film Programme: Graphite! Animated Traces

The first film programme curated as part of the Animate Materials Workshop is devoted to graphite. Artists featured in this programme embrace graphite as a vibrant collaborator that transforms the screen into a tactile surface. Through animation, graphite comes to life as a hard-edged medium of incisive social commentary and a fluid material for diving into the subconscious.

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Exhibition: “Refractions: Mia Milardo + Weiwei Wu”

Refractions (January 2023) brings together new work by Mia Milardo and Weiwei Wu, both of whom are alumna of my Animate Materials Workshop. Both artists were trained in traditional animation production, and it has been immensely rewarding to see how the workshop format liberated them to experiment in different ways. The exhibition has drawn a lot of attention, with visitors stopping for an extended time every time that I’ve passed by it in the Michael O’Brian Exhibition Commons. My curatorial text can be found here.

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