Videos Archive - Digital Stories Canada

Redirecting the Path of Clouds

The artist Tallulah is performing in a black dress with pink clouds overlaid.

In each scene, clouds float through the mundane: washing dishes, folding laundry, cleaning floors. These images are intertwined to emphasise the tension between a woman’s inner world—where the imagination and freedom of clouds roam—and the external expectations that shape her daily life. The question I pose—”Can we redirect the path of clouds?”—represents a larger inquiry: can we alter our lives, reshape our identities, or even reclaim the time spent on expected tasks?

Uncle Carmel’s Home Movie

A woman with dark hair offers a bottle of wine to her visitors.

I found an 8mm home movie, filmed in 1965, which belonged to our great uncle Carmel. He was a professional boxer for nine years, was in the navy during World War II, and loved to travel and get together with loved ones.

I pieced together a few moments from his action-packed life, with the assistance of the Digital Stories workshop. The scenes from the 8mm reel depict various family gatherings, including a sequence in Sicily where he located some distant relatives.

In addition to segments from the 8mm reel, I included a photograph from the 1940s, a newspaper clipping, and a prayer card. The accompanying soundtrack is my musical trio’s rendition of “Carnival of Venice.”

RIP Uncle Carmel, June 8, 1908 — February 9, 1980

Comedy Club Dream

A woman's face is overlaid with waves of water.

Michal Tkachenko explores a dream that resembles real life. Imagine you have the stage. Now what are you going to share about yourself?

Artist Bio

Michal Tkachenko is a Canadian/British visual artist currently based in Canada. Michal received her MA Fine
Art from the Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, UK. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, Africa and Europe and can be found in a number of collections including Ernst & Young (UK) and The Artists’ Special Book Collection at the University of the Arts London (Chelsea College Library) in the UK.

In her newest series Tkachenko is working with scale models recreating a variety of COVID dioramas representing the variety of experiences people are having when confined to their home during quarantines. Primarily a painter, Tkachenko’s work has examined the notion of celebrity, the traditional alter piece and the iconography of the saints. Past work looks at gluttony and food’s relationship to community. She has spent time re-looking, reflecting and mapping her face, misaligned through a life-threatening accident. After returning from living in Africa (Malawi, Liberia, and Morocco) she documented the effects of a 14-year civil war through a series of portraits. Michal is also the recipient of the Alberta Foundation for the Arts Grant.

Credits

Digital Storyteller, Videographer and Sound Recordist: Michal Tkachenko
Editor: Sebnem Ozpeta

Mentors: Lorna Boschman and Sebnem Ozpeta.
Created during a workshop with DTES Artists Grants Program, Vancouver Foundation.

JD Phone Home

Image of abandoned vacant lot and building with graffiti

James Diamond’s tour of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, sharing his personal experiences of housing and reflecting on the meaning of home.

Artist Bio

James Diamond is a multidiscipinary experimental artist. His past film/video works, including the award winning Man from Venus, Outline, and Mars Womb Man have screened internationally for over a decade. As an outsider artist, he had the honour of presenting his first film retrospective in Toronto at the age of 35 at Toronto’s Rhubarb Performance Arts Festival. His films continue to be screened internationally in gritty underground festivals and more established venues alike, such as the National Film Board of Canada and for academic purposes. His paintings have been curated extensively across North America/Turtle Island where he currently resides. While his work transcends typical categorization, it is has been described as experimental, political, and autobiographical. Through video, theatre, music and painting, he exposes and entwines intimate accounts; analyzing and cultivating genders, sexualities, experiences of mental illness and poverty as a trans anti-zionist, white, jewish settler.

Credits

Digital Storyteller, Videographer and Editor: James Diamond

Mentors: Lorna Boschman and Sebnem Ozpeta.
Created during a workshop with DTES Artists Grants Program, Vancouver Foundation.

Still Life/Still

With a red backdrop, a collection of food scraps including vegetable and pineapple scraps are overflowing a white ceramic bowl

A pictorial timeline expressed with the food scraps leftover from meal preparation and caregiving served to family during the illness and the eventual passing of a family member.

My Global Warming

Living with Multiple Sclerosis has been a process of adapting to a changing environment in which some of my physical abilities, my career and many friendships were eroded. I had worked in the arctic and was shocked to note the resemblance between the glaciers and the plaques on my brain from the MRI scan. What now?

At the crossroads of my demyelination journey, I had to choose – to succumb to the elements or to embrace my circumstances and move on in the art of living. I had no map to guide me.

Credits

Digital Storyteller and Video: Harris Taylor

Editor and Mentor: Lorna Boschman
Ambient Audio sources include ZapSplat and Pixabay
Photoshop image created by Harris Taylor during QUIRK-E workshop Queer Imaging and Riting Kollective for Elders at Britannia Community Centre
Thanks to feedback during our digital storytelling workshop!

Created during grunt gallery’s 2023 Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen Digital Storytelling workshops with Mount Pleasant residents. grunt gallery was founded in 1984 in Vancouver, BC with the vision to become an internationally renowned artist-run centre and further the practice of contemporary art. Through the exploration of our diverse Canadian cultural identity, we are able to offer public programming in the form of exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications, and other special projects in the community. Our mandate is to inspire public dialogue by creating an environment conducive to the emergence of innovative, collaborative, and provocative contemporary art.

Comments

Thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed the combination of the imagery, soundscapes and the message of course. Very well done.

Dr. Aaron Jager

Thanks for giving me your two digital stories. I think they are beautiful. You describe MS in a new way for me to think about and you tell a story about your roots and ties to land and family that I admire. The digitalstories.ca website is great. I will brouse it.

Caroline Leaf

Thank you very much for sharing both of these stories, Harris. I very much enjoyed them. What a history in Agawa Canyon!!! And your comparison of MS and the northern climate is amazing.

Jill Nelson

Thank you for sending your video. I love the imagery and your comments, especially, “Transform a challenge with art”. You’re good at that!

M. Brooks

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

Emma Kivisild

Your video is amazing.

Shasta Crombie

Very well done. Congratulations!! Emotional presentation and the imagery really resonates. Glaciers and rivers – kayaking or canoeing – movement. Going with the flow even when we feel out of control.

Fatima Correia

Beautiful and powerful. Thanks for sharing.

Jean Hershey

Thanks Harris. It is powerful.

Marsha Ablowitz

Very powerful, inspiring and informative. Thanks to you and to Lorna.

Ellen Woodsworth

Congratulations Harris.

Paula Stromberg

Impressive Harris. Thank you for sharing. You have a perfect voice for narrating.

Farren Gillaspie

Thank you for the work and the association with Quirk-e.

River Glen

Very nice. How is it to be used? It’s very short!

Jacqueline Levitin

I am writing to you about your work My Global Warming: your piece was selected and will be shown in our Digital Stories showcase on the screen from April 1, 2024 – March 31, 2025. Congratulations!

We enjoyed your piece about MS, and the visual metaphors you conveyed with water, icebergs and your own personal experiences.

Alger Ji-Liang,

Curator – Mount Pleasant Art Screen, Grunt Gallery

Your digital story was amazing.

I listened with headphones and wanted to keep on hearing the water & your voice for ages.

Listened to it twice, so far!

You have the most beautiful voice!

When I drive past the Grunt I will stop and look for it.

I presume that it will be on a loop with others.

Karen Fleming

Crawling Around

Artist Statement by Dorothy Doherty

It was never my intention to create a video about Stink Bugs. Rather, I caught the bugs in glass jars to trap them, as my way of dealing with the abundance of stink bugs in my home. In the Fall of 2022, Vancouver had a serious invasion of stink bugs. They entered our homes through the smallest cracks. Once inside, they hunkered down for a cozy winter and hid in books, clothes, and stacks of paper. They were docile and easy to catch. I observed their anatomy and witnessed their behaviour as they climbed the walls of their transparent prisons. They even walked upside down along the glass floors of the inverted jars. And for a closer look, cell phone videos made it possible to examine their shield-like exteriors and soft underbellies as they crawled around the clear glass jars.

Dorothy Doherty Bio

Dorothy Doherty is concerned with the effect humans have on the environment. Her artwork blends abstraction and realism, and examines issues including urban decay, global issues, and the beauty of the world around us. She received her formal art education at Vancouver School of Art (Emily Carr University of Art & Design) and Capilano University. She holds an MA in Art History (University of Victoria) and a PDP (Simon Fraser University). She taught ceramics in the Kootenays and the BC Interior, part time credit courses for Cariboo College (now Thompson Rivers University), as well as art and civilizations part time for SD44 (North Vancouver). She paints at Portside Studios and makes ceramics at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Burnaby, BC.

Credits

Video & Photos
Dorothy Doherty

Mentors
Lorna Boschman
Sebnem Ozpeta

Editor
Lorna Boschman

Thanks to grunt gallery, Vancouver Foundation and Digital Stories Canada.

Want to Be (New Again)

Stylized image of fire burning old masks in shades of yellow and orange

Artist Statement

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

In the past 4 years I have been through a process of unmasking, layer after layer, so many parts of myself that I had disowned. It has been painful, excruciatingly so at times, to meet the younger versions of me that have been living homeless all these years. And yet there is also a joyful rekindling of passions thought long dead, new dreams coming into view, but still slightly out of focus.

I keep coming back to these words of Mary Oliver’s. I keep coming back to the body, to this moment. When the agony of untold years of suppressed pain brings me to my knees, I tell myself “you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” I ask my body what she wants, and she tells me she is thirsty, she is tired, she longs to be touched. Then I give her what she needs in that moment. Slowly, like an injured pup, she opens to me. Shares a little more about her desires. I listen. I act. We are building trust between us, we are becoming new again. Whole. One.

Bio

GOLDbard is a divergent creative who is sharing their healing gifts with the world through art, writing, and song. Whether performing with their duo Sonicjoy or doing healing work with clients as a trauma recovery coach, their work centers their lived experience in a queer, neurodivergent, fat, trauma survivor body. They believe that the arts are our most powerful tool for personal and collective transformation, and that QUEER JOY is the birthright of every human on this planet. You can find and follow GOLDbard on Instagram at GOLDbardcreative

Created during grunt gallery’s 2023 Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen Digital Storytelling workshops. grunt gallery was founded in 1984 in Vancouver, BC with the vision to become an internationally renowned artist-run centre and further the practice of contemporary art. Through the exploration of our diverse Canadian cultural identity, we are able to offer public programming in the form of exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications, and other special projects in the community. Our mandate is to inspire public dialogue by creating an environment conducive to the emergence of innovative, collaborative, and provocative contemporary art.
We gratefully acknowledge that we live and work on the unceded, traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations.

Everyone Belongs

Coco Eskotew’s powerful challenge to a bully’s “silent treatment” grows out of her ability as a visual artist to express metaphors through her paintbrush. Coco’s digital story was created during a workshop at the Carnegie Centre in Vancouver, in a program supported by the grunt gallery and Vancouver Foundation.

Credits
Painter, videographer and director: Coco Eskotew
Editor: Sebnem Ozpeta
Mentors: Lorna Boschman and Sebnem Ozpeta
Special thanks to Dana Oikawa, Carnegie Centre, and Vancouver Foundation’s DTES Small Arts Grants

Created during grunt gallery’s 2023 Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen Digital Storytelling workshops. grunt gallery was founded in 1984 in Vancouver, BC with the vision to become an internationally renowned artist-run centre and further the practice of contemporary art. Through the exploration of our diverse Canadian cultural identity, we are able to offer public programming in the form of exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications, and other special projects in the community. Our mandate is to inspire public dialogue by creating an environment conducive to the emergence of innovative, collaborative, and provocative contemporary art.
We gratefully acknowledge that we live and work on the unceded, traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations.

QUANTUM SMACK!

Artist Statement by Susi Milne

High tide and sunrise coincide on a chilly winter’s day at the edge of the North West Pacific Ocean 0717hrs early. Wow! I thank my lucky stars for what is coming next as I strip down and wade out to just above my knees; dive purposefully into the water – fast – arms then head first. My body pushing off the ocean floor upwards and outwards through a forward moving trajectory. Then SMACK, I am miraculously transitioned into the QUANTUM! Those nanoseconds in the air before the full body plunge-dive are like a supernova. All of my laypersons fascination with fractals, black holes, quasars and the dark energies/matter/ether come into play here.

When my earth body hits that icy water at fast forward dive speed, electromagnetic fields stretch out and I enter another dimension. My primary impression is of experiencing some kind of intense cellular level vision that blows my brain up with a spectacle of blues; azure and aquatic, cyan, aquamarine, deep indigo, navy, turquoise, Finnish blue, midnight blue, sky blue and royal blue – they entirely fill my brain from edge to edge with pleasure.

The real time QUANTUM SMACK! plunging into the icy waters promotes a fundamental somatic healing way for old traumas to leave my body. I seem to encounter the stars close up as I dive quickly into the freezing ocean. To me, it feels like a quantum experience. I allow myself to Deeply Love in and for these moments, and it is beautiful.

Credits

Visuals: All visuals created by Susi Milne 2023. Watercolour on rag paper; blade-cut specialty card paper; video footage of cut out waves over watercolour waves; poetry and audio. Painting influenced by Katsushika Hokusai.

Audio: The ultimate quantum experience is the existence of the black hole or at least the theory of that. A black hole spontaneously emits elementary particles. The typical energy of these particles is proportional to Planck’s constant, so the effect is purely quantum mechanical in nature. Here I have used the sonification of typical black hole data to help the viewer to come into the QUANTUM SMACK!

Gratitude: Thank you ever so much to the grunt Gallery, Dr. Boschman, and the zoom group for the project. A very special thank you to Sebnem Ozpeta for the exquisite editing.

Still from QUANTUM SMACK! by Susi Milne

Susi Milne Bio

Susi Milne is a Canadian artist known for her drawings, watercolours, and mixed media art pieces. Her works range from paintings, paper and textile sculptures and video/photo based art to poetry/performance art. Milne’s eclectic practice is
informed through life and work as “Living Art”. A dedicated and picturesque history with several founding artists run centres in Vancouver include serving as the President of the BOD at grunt Gallery, Vancouver through the 2000’s; early years as program director at the Western Front Society, Vancouver, and an ongoing engagement with the robust Vancouver art community that carries into the present day.
Milne has exhibited and performed her artwork and performance/poetry nationally and internationally over the years. Recently, Milne’s work was featured in the IMAPON exhibition SPACE 2022 at McBride Park, Vancouver. Her on line exhibition PERSONA through IMAPON LOCO MOTO Arts; features eighteen watercolour/pen and ink paintings that were all sold into private collections. Daily creative media content is published on her Instagram (@tibbedragon777).
Milne’s watercolour paintings were featured in prestigious literary journals 2017-20. Milne’s iconic image for the #METOO movement appeared nationally and internationally (2017). Milne lives in an art abode overlooking the seaside of the Pacific Northwest coastal mountain range.

Created during grunt gallery’s 2023 Mount Pleasant Community Art Screen Digital Storytelling workshops with Mount Pleasant residents. grunt gallery was founded in 1984 in Vancouver, BC with the vision to become an internationally renowned artist-run centre and further the practice of contemporary art. Through the exploration of our diverse Canadian cultural identity, we are able to offer public programming in the form of exhibitions, performances, artist talks, publications, and other special projects in the community. Our mandate is to inspire public dialogue by creating an environment conducive to the emergence of innovative, collaborative, and provocative contemporary art.

Tick and Talk of Common Time

Creative Process Notes

Creation Process for Tick and Talk of Common Time –- by Margaret Dragu
COVID-19 triggered the moving of my Fitness/Yoga personal/small group training from IRL to ZOOM allowing me to teach people around the world without leaving my living room. This was kewl. But I longed for more intimacy/connection with my participants so I added TikTok dance crazes to my lesson plans and began ZOOM recording my participants and me dancing together. This was popular and fun but at the end of the week (months, years) I still felt displacement, absence, and longing.
Historic dance crazes (Charleston, Jitterbug, Twist and Macarena etc.) were performed live in dancehalls/nightclubs or on TV shows like Ed Sullivan or Soul Train. On the other hand, TikTok dance crazes, while viewed by a large public on the internet, are recorded by individuals/small groups very privately in their living rooms or workplaces with the social aspect only being a possible future connection between the dancer(s) and their phone–scrolling viewers.
When I watch TikTok dance compilations (and even my own footage), I feel a rupture between public/private, and longing/desire. This rupture reminds me of art concepts and processes of John Cage & Merce Cunningham with whom I have had a 50+ year fascination.
The Merce Cunningham Dance Company was founded in 1953 at Black Mountain College. This was also the year I was born. Although my formative dance training is German Modern Expressionist Dance via Nikolais and Hanya Holm, the Cunningham–Cage art concepts always appealed to me. Cage-Cunningham created dance and sound independently, then employed chance operations and tasks to combine them in live performances inviting accidents, surprises and overlaps to occur. Their separate-but-together collaborations expanded the fields of dance, music, moving image, and visual art to dismantle hierarchies and create new forms of choreography and syncopation. Cage–Cunningham stated their work was rooted in the scenic space of a “common time”. I am borrowing their term and bending their concepts for this interdisciplinary project called Tick Talk of Common Time.
For this project, I recorded dancers and artists from Vancouver (live) in dance studios, parks, walking paths, and my living room. National & international participants were recorded with me via ZOOM. I edited all this footage together to made 5 TikTok dances. I gave one dance video to each of the five composers. composer: They stripped off the popular music tracks and composed original music and soundscapes.
The 5 videos with original compositions were the immersive frame for 5 live-to tape Entr’actes. Each entr’acte was an improvised 2 minute performance by a dancing duo and a vocal transcribing duo created in the moment for camera.

Credits

CREDITS for FIVE VARIATIONS
Solo Dancers
Justine A. Chambers, Kate Franklin, Vanessa Kwan, Johanna Householder, Francisco-Fernando Granados, Angelo Pedari, Stephanie Bokenfohr, Margaret Dragu
Modus Operandi Dancers
Bridget Lee, Allie Shiff, Alesandra, Rianna Logan, Mia Pelayo, Emma Wallace, Brianne Chan, Abby Hunter, Natasa Kong, Emily Clarke
Composers
Mark Haney, Nikita Carter, E. Kage, Sarah Sheard, Brady Marks
Dance Whip & Administration
Kate Franklin

CREDITS for FIVE ENTR’ACTES
Improvisational Dancers
Justine A. Chambers, Margaret Dragu
Improvisational Vocalists
Stephanie Bokenfohr, Danielle Wensley
A/V Designer and Camera
Brady Marks
Technicians
Arman Paxad, Genki Ferguson
Thank-you
VIVO Media Arts Centre
Modus Operandi Dance School
BC Arts Council
DWI: Dragu Worker International
TikTok Dancers around the world
BACKGROUND RESEARCH
Examples of early Viral TikTok Dances
https://youtu.be/613A9d6Doac
https://youtu.be/gYhm6PCUtSg
https://youtu.be/S9WD58vjwC8
https://youtu.be/B1Wnv69YhWU

Transcript

Tick and Talk of Common Time
Title appears, Pink text on Grey – Tick and T-A-L-K Talk of Common Time
Tick and T-A-L-K: Talk of Common Time is an opus in five variations and five entr’actes.
The variations include both original and found footage of professional dancers, artists and day to day people doing viral TikTok dances.
The entr’actes show a live to tape performance in a studio where two dancers, Margaret and Justine, and two vocalists, Stephanie and Danielle, share moments of chance. The studio has concrete floors and white walls. The lighting is moody with subtle changing colours that create dramatic shadows and silhouettes. The vocalists speak into microphones, in conversation with the dancers.
By the way, I’m Danielle… … and I’m Stephanie and we will be guiding you through the work.
The original footage was made in so-called Vancouver in various locations including Margaret’s living room, city parks, dance studios and recorded zoom meetings. The people featured in this work are diverse in age, race and gender. They are dressed for comfort, each showing personal style. Detailed credits are shared at the end [of this audio transcription].
Throughout, video and editing effects include smaller frames layered over the mainframe like little windows that allow us to experience isolated dancers performing in sync. There are also some moments of high saturation, where the colour of the footage is hyperreal.
Each TikTok dance includes a choreographed sequence of movement that repeats. As the dances progress, the focus is less on the precision of choreography, and more revealing of the performer’s individual character while they indulge in the movement. And now …

VARIATION 1 composed by Mark Haney
In a strong stance, they dance to the beat. On the spot they swing their hips to one side as they rotate. They strike triumphant poses, with clenched fists and hands outstretched. They are sensual, too, with fingers aflutter.
Composer Mark Haney describes their music as distant drum machine in an echo-y cave made of crystal with disco whale low pitches and a relentless bass beat; not necessarily pleasant
First Entr’acte
VARIATION 2 composed by Nikita Carter
In a strong stance, they dance to the beat. With pulsing steps, they move side to side, forward and back. They are fierce and indulge in moments of joy. Double pointer fingers call us in to repeat the dance again.
Composer Nikita Carter describes their music as Water Being. Second Entr’acte
VARIATION 3 composed by E. Kage
Treading with intention, a shared reflection on loss and longing Tides of giving and receiving
Palms open, they push away and pull in
Steady movement; they are embraced by the cycle
Double pointer fingers call us in to a cacophony of beating hearts
Composer Kage describes their music as contemplative taiko drums with bells and vocals.
Kage’s English Lyrics
Loss of a parent like the ground dissolving, beneath your feet, nothing to stand on Now I know how it feels, welcome to the club, hey!
Among the books or skiing the slopes in the spirit world, you are there You inspire and influence from the library of beyond, ho!
One day I promise to meet you there, when its time, when its my time As our physical realm will surely end, until then I will do my best, ha!
Third Entr’acte
VARIATION 4 composed by Sarah Sheard
In a studio, a group of dancers, in unison; their steady and joyful movement clashes with the eerie soundscape.
Found TikTok clips are treated with high saturation and hyperreal colour. A shared tension between two realities.
Composer Sarah Sheard describes their music as solemn, formal and eerie. Fourth Entr’acte
VARIATION 5 composed by Brady Marks
In uniform, in unison, groups of dancers; in public, in a studio; They share a dance of quadrants; falling forward, back to the beginning Dancing is another way of walking
Composer Brady Marks describes their music as Amapiano Rhythmic Music
The artists gratefully acknowledge they live and work on the traditional territories of the Coast Salish peoples sḵwx̱ wú7mesh (Squamish), sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil Waututh), and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) nations.

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