2012
This Story Begins and Ends with Us Co-curated with Erik Martinson. A solo exhibition of the work of Basma Alsharif. With a skillful play between moving images, text, translation and voice, the media work of Alsharif calls out the viewer’s position of watching, asking us to reconsider the certainty with which we know the world. Alsharif’s practice evinces an interest in how people relate to and internalize geo-political shifts that occur within their lifetimes, and those they carry with them from past generations. Weaving structural visual codes with material archives, her aim is to decentralize content and produce work that operates through a multi-vantage perspective, thereby transforming information into a visceral experience.
2011
What Goes Around Comes Around Reference Library What Goes Around Comes Around is an emergent exhibition that offers a glimpse into artistic trends that utilize collectivity as not only the means of production, but a platform for political and social interaction. In compliment to the exhibition, the Reference Library collects contemporary texts that interrogate participatory art practices.
Speaking Difference A discussion about what is at stake when artworks attempt acts of translation, be it between one person and another, or between different ways of knowing the world. Featuring Gina Badger, Lucas Freeman, Franscisco-Fernando Granados, Nika Khanjani and Kika Thorne.
The Normal Condition of Any Communication Considering the potential of participating in conversations that extend beyond a person’s particular subject position, the works in this exhibition perform acts of translation between individuals and across cultures. Featuring works by Ayreen Anastas + Rene Gabri, Neil Beloufa, Keren Cytter, Claire Fontaine and Reza Haeri.
All Our Memories Significant in Retrospect Presented as part of the 24th annual Images Festival. Organized around a formal consideration–the use of text in cinema–these films explore the possibility of reconfiguring the authority of language by setting text in motion. Featuring works by Basma Alsharif, mounir fatmi and Beatrice Gibson.
The Permanent Longing for Elsewhere Presented in Toronto (January 2011) and Vancouver (March 2011). Works in this screening use frustration to explore the ways that paradigms of nationalism are breaking down. Understanding displacement as a common, contemporary experience, these films attempt to articulate how one’s origins figure into a self-positioning that is constantly in flux. Featuring works by Rainer Ganahl, Bouchra Khalili, John Smith and Daniela Swarowsky.
2010
The Future Trilogy Presented as part of the 10th annual Signal + Noise Festival Media Art Festival. In November 2005, IKEA announced a new store opening in Edmonton, London to be accompanied by an offer of a significant price reduction on leather sofas. When 6000 people arrived to compete for the discount, a riot ensued, injuring 16 shoppers. The Pil + Galia Kollectiv’s The Future Trilogy takes this event as the starting point for a speculative history of a fictional future.
Kamal Aljafari Co-curated with Amy Lynn Kazymerchyk and Cinema Project, and presented as part of DIM Cinema, a monthly short-form, experimental film series. Using the lens of experimental documentary, Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari draws on the lived experience of his family based in Ramallah and Jaffa, now part of Israel, to explore the architecture of identity, place and present pasts.
Afternoon School Co-curated with Lois Klassen and presented as part of Safe Assembly, a series of programming responding to states of exception created by the 2010 Winter Olympic games. Afternoon School addressed the two week gap in post-secondary education by providing an opportunity for dialogue that started with criticality and resistance. Speakers included Angela Piccini, Kristina Lee Podevsa and Rob Stone.
2009
what remained to complete a circumnavigation of the planet Expanded cinema performance commanding lightening surges of luminescence and thunderclaps of sine waves to create visceral experiences on the screen and in the body. Bruce McClure conducted four unique performances: You Know My Methods, Christmas Tree Stand – Part 1, Evertwo Circumflicksrent Page 298, Cong In Our Gregational Pompoms.
Letters to the President The Iranian habit of writing letters to President Ahmadinejad is the focus of Petr Lom’s documentary Letters to the President. Artist, curator, writer and activist Mohammad Salemy engaged Lom in discussion about politics, propaganda and the possibilities for personal response in Iran.
Cinematic Cartographies An exploration of the places where individual lives intersect the abstract maps of global capitalism. Co-curated with Roger Beebe. Featuring works by Bill Brown and Jacqueline Goss, and Randy Lee Cutler, Nelson Henricks and Steve Reinke.
The Enduring Highlighting a tendency to privilege mental realities over physical ones, this short program of short films revealed a fragility in the distance that separates memory from its referent. Featuring works by Marianna Milhorat and Monique Moumblow.
suddenly everything changed Presented as part of the 9th annual Signal + Noise Festival. Looking back, the clues were clear. But by the time the emergency crew took flight it was too late. Things will never be the same. Installation work by Christina Battle.
The Soft Revolution A three-channel, interactive installation that challenges the frame of traditional cinema by relying on the audience’s involvement, and the philosophic principles of the I-Ching, to reveal the narrative of a vibrant, complicated Gulf Islands family. Created by media artists Brian Johnson and Anthony Roberts.
2008
Ghost Dialogues Selected works from the Western Front Media Archive featuring the films of Cioni Carpi, Kate Craig, Dalibor Martinis and Tom Sherman. Part of the Perspectives on an Archive group residency.
Art + Activism: World AIDS Day A series of screenings highlighting the ongoing need for awareness, action and education around the subject of AIDS, recognizing that art often is a creative conduit for raising awareness about important social and political issues. Featuring Derek Jarman’s Blue, Wrik Mead’s Deviate, and Annette Mangaard’s General Idea: Art, AIDS and the fin de siècle.
Dana Claxton in Conversation with Mike Hoolboom A discussion between author/filmmakers Mike Hoolboom and Dana Claxton about her artistic practice.
Gastown Drive-In Co-curated with Peeroj Thakre. Featuring short and feature films that have been shot in part or wholly within the Metro Vancouver area, the provocative venue for the film series demonstrated the potential of functional infrastructure to be re-imagined as a social and cultural resource. Featuring the work of Mark Lewis, Natasha McHardy, Marina Roy and Yun Lam Li.
Who Will Give Up Their Distinctions? Presented as part of the Pacific Association of Artist Run Centres’ SWARM. An installation of video responses to the question “Who will give up their distinctions?” featuring the work of Clint Enns and Debashis Sinha.
Optical Allusions A program of experimental film works that have been made using optical printer manipulations. Featuring work by Christina Battle, John Behrans, Amanda Dawn Christie, John Kneller and Matthias Mueller.
2007
Encouraging Diversity Behind and In Front of the Camera A discussion about the importance of and challenges to realizing cultural diversity in film products and practices, focusing on possible ways to encourage both. Featuring filmmakers Jim Finn, John Jeffcoat and Michael V. Smith.
Riot in Vancouver Co-curated with Colleen Langford. Commemorating four cornerstone years in the history of Canada, the program drew together a special collection of films confronting and questioning notions of displacement, family, language, race and culture, contemplating both the historic and contemporary forces at work in the global movement of Asians to Canada. Featuring work by Dorothy Christian, Ann Marie Flemming and Rick Shiomi, and Tadashi H. Nakamura.
