Freedom Rocks

For the past few months, I have been working as a Research Assistant to Vid Ingelevics and Blake Fitzpatrick, assisting on their long-term collaborative project, Freedom Rocks. Specifically, I’ve been helping with two exhibits of their work: The Mobile Ruin at Harbourfront Centre and The Labour of Commemoration at Prefix ICA.

The Mobile Ruin has already opened and is currently open to the public, The Labour of Commemoration will be opening next Thursday evening.

TIFF 2017

I had the privilege this year of attending the Toronto International Film Festival, with a Conference Industry Pass, which apart from having access to several industry events, also meant that I was able to get free same-day tickets to public screenings. I took advantage of this perk and attended several screenings:

• Wavelengths 1: Appetite for Destruction
• The Lodgers
• Wavelengths 2: Fluid Frontiers
• The Cured
• Gutland
• Caniba
• Professor Marston & the Wonder Women
• Faces Places
• Luk’Luk’l

I was also able to use the screening library (useful when I had to kill time downtown) to catch a few shorts, most notably Michelle Latimer’s short documentary, Nuuca.

Faces Places by Agnes Varda and JR, as well as Nuuca, were my favourite films of what I caught, but I would say that Luk’Luk’l and Caniba are two films that will sit with me for a while.

I won’t make any false promises of committing to blogging on the regular. I’ve tried to do that before, and it’s only resulted in self-guilt. What I can promise is that I will make an effort to use this space for promotion – not just self-promotion, but also to promote other people’s work, events, places, etc. I can also make a half-promise that I’ll never make such a long post again.

For a few years, I was working at a large NGO, but since there wasn’t growth for me – I finally quit last summer. Immediately after, I spent two weeks documenting the construction of an Earthship on Six Nations. I posted daily updates of the build on Facebook, but also have some highlights in the Building Homes portfolio.

Being involved in that build was a changing experience for me. It opened me up to new thoughts about sustainable living and community building. In my personal life, I’ve pushed this into my gardening practices, growing food for myself and sharing it with the Bunz community.

Back to school

Since last September I’ve been pursuing my MFA at Ryerson in Documentary Media. As part of the program, I’m working on a thesis project, focusing on 206 Carlton and Ernst Zundel – who died this weekend. Though I am still in a research pre-production stage, I recently cut this short teaser trailer for my upcoming project.

My project, along with my classmates will show as part of the DocNow festival in June 2018. My studies have taken me into exploring “the Archive” and what its role in activist practices can be.

This past May, I was involved in a group exhibition for Toronto’s Contact Festival. Our exhibit was titled 150, and since I found the idea of celebrating Canada’s 150 years of colonialism, I used my space to present images of dissent, as seen on protest signs at events in Toronto.

I also co-produced a short film that was shown at Harbourfront Centre this past June 27th for Multiculturalism Day. The project, Taxi Stories, was part of one day of the Here in the 6ix festival and gave visitors a chance to sit in a taxi and listen to these short films about local taxi drivers.

Cheers!
-Sylvia