CURATOR’S TOUR OF THE EXHIBITION
Saturday February 27, 2 PM
Tour of Magnetic Norths with artist and curator Charles Stankievech
At the Gallery
In English
Michael Snow, La Région Centrale, 1971. Film still courtesy of CFMDC.
SCREENINGS
Sunday March 7, 2 PM
At the Goethe-Institut, 418 Sherbrooke E
La Région Centrale, 1971
A film by Michael Snow
180 min, 16 mm (no dialogue)
Michael Snow’s 1970-71 film La Région Centrale is as fine and important a film as I have ever seen. Ordinarily a statement like this means that you should rush out to see the film, but this is not an ordinary film. It is an unimaginable film. Can you imagine a film that is three hours long and only photographs a landscape? You might say, “Sure a short version of Warhol’s Empire would do for a start.” But can you imagine a film constantly demanding concentration on the screen lest some of the action be missed, a film without people, in which the camera never stops moving, never moves more than four feet from a central point and never tracks, dollies, or is hand-held? Snow’s film is literally like nothing you have ever seen before.
John W. Locke (Artforum, November/December, 1973)
Peter Mettler, Picture of Light, 1994. Film still courtesy of Grimthorpe Film Inc.
Sunday March 14, 2PM
At the de Sève Cinema, 1400 de Maisonneuve West, LB-125 (Ground floor)
Picture of Light, 1994
A film by Peter Mettler
Original score: Jim O’Rourke
Colour, Super 16 mm blow-up and 35 mm, 83 min (original English version)
This screening is presented in collaboration with the FOFA Gallery and AKVK Ghost Acoustics.
Picture of Light (1994) is a feature documentary that follows a film crew’s journey to the Subarctic to capture the wonder of the Northern Lights. While combining glimpses of the characters who live in this remote environment with the crew’s comic and absurd attempts to deal with extremes, the film reflects upon the paradoxes involved in trying to capture the natural wonder of the Northern Lights on celluloid.
Peter Mettler’s films and collaborations result in works that encompass live image/sound mixing performance, photography and installation. Meditations on our world that are rooted in personal experience, Mettler’s films reflect the visions and wonder of their characters and audiences alike.
Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn, The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, 2006. Video still courtesy of Vtape.
Wednesday March 31, 7 PM
At the Goethe-Institut, 418 Sherbrooke E
How to Build an Igloo, 1949
A film by Douglas Wilkinson
Colour, 16 mm transferred to video, 10 min. 27 s
A classic short film that shows how to make an igloo using only snow and a knife.
+
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen, 2006
A film by Zacharias Kunuk and Norman Cohn
112 min, digital beta (in Inuktitut with English subtitles)
Iglulik, 1922-23. Real people, actual events.
The great shaman, Avva, and his family are living on the land some distance from Iglulik, his home community that lately has taken up the teachings of Christian missionaries. Explorer/adventurer Knud Rasmussen pays Avva a visit, accompanied by two fellow Danes: trader Peter Freuchen and anthropologist Therkel Mathiassen. Rasmussen hears and records Avva’s life story and that of his wife Orulu. Their son, Natar, impulsively agrees to guide Freuchen and Mathiassen north to Iglulik. After a celebration, Rasmussen leaves to head west while Avva, facing strong headwinds, sets out with his family and guests en route for home. His beautiful daughter, Apak, has troubling dreams about the road ahead.
JOYCE WIELAND AND THE NORTH: CONVERSATION BETWEEN KRISTY A. HOLMES AND JOHANNE SLOAN
Thursday April 8, 5 PM
At the Gallery
Kristy Holmes and Johanne Sloan discuss Joyce Wieland’s figuration of “the north” throughout her artistic and filmic production of the 1960s and 70s. This conversation will touch on questions of gender, ecology, and politics, as well as the artist’s treatment of aboriginality. In English.
A reception will follow the conversation.
Kristy A. Holmes is Assistant Professor of Art History at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Her research includes the works of art and films of Canadian artist and filmmaker Joyce Wieland from the late 1960s and early 1970s as well as modern and contemporary feminist artistic production and visual culture in Canada. She has published in the Canadian Journal of Film Studies and the anthology, The Sixties: Passion, Politics, and Style. In 2009, Holmes held a research fellowship in Canadian Art at the National Gallery of Canada.
Johanne Sloan is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director in the Department of Art History at Concordia University in Montreal, Québec. Her research and teaching often concern Canadian art and visual culture from the 1960s until the present day. Her books Joyce Wieland’s The Far Shore as well as Expo 67: Not Just a Souvenir, a book of essays co-edited by Sloan and Rhona Richman Kenneally, will both be published later this year by the University of Toronto Press.
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
FREE ADMISSION