Videos Archive - Digital Stories Canada

Theatre of the Unemployed

https://vimeo.com/1019020200?share=copy Theatre of the Unemployed’s style varied but our philosophy was to involve people directly affected by an issue in writing and performing the plays. Don Orr Martin’s short trailer is the start of a longer project about Theatre of the Unemployed. The Emma Goldman Collective began in 1974–the founders of Theatre of the Unemployed. … Read more

Bill Morrow

A tribute to Bill Morrow, gay man from an older generation who built community with other LGBT+ and Buddhist folks later in life.

Baffin Caribou on The Road to Nowhere

Four Baffin Island caribou looking for food beneath the white Arctic snow

Baffin Caribou on The Road to Nowhere documents a population which is threatened by global warming, over-hunting and industrial development. In December, 1994, it was minus 60 degrees celsius on The Road to Nowhere in Iqaluit, Nunavut and my last chance to capture the beauty of this fragile Caribou herd.

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.

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