Dreamt Territories, Imagined Bodies

This new program of videos on the FMS Lobby Screen brings together a selection of work by members, collaborators and friends of the Feminist Media Studio. As a cross-section of current, recent, and still in-progress projects and exercises, this collection of videos gives us a chance to share work done in solitary, in smaller crews, off-site, in dark edit rooms, as intermediary sketches and rough cuts, and in various other contexts often out of view.

The methods, genres and aesthetics deployed in these pieces range widely, from documentary and autoethnography, to scripted narrative and sci-fi, and on to visual collage, performance and animation. Within this assortment of forms, certain threads emerge: of bodies implicated in space, of reflections on and resistance to transformations in our surroundings, of surreal and queer explorations of present and future, and dreamt and imagined possibilities in the face of precarity.

List of Videos

1. I dreamt this was my home
   (work in progress, 2017, 5m 58s)
   by Helena KrobathI dreamt this was my home repeatedly re-configures visual approaches to the nature parks where Helena Krobath grew up. Deconstructing the ‘natural’ in forest recreation sites exposes colonial and capitalist logics entwining familiar narratives, and shifts attention from the ‘known’ to the constructive power of imagination. (mutinyandmayhem.com)
2. Cycles
   (2017, 10m 9s)
   by Alex Bahary, Olivier Beauchemin, Maggie Macdonald, Émilie TrudeauCycles follows a bike courier on her circuit through the neighbourhood of St. Henri, capturing the diversity of the community and offering a glimpse into the embourgeoisement of the area. Commentary on gentrification is rife for editorialization, and Cycles moves through this ‘personality of place’ to explore the process that the neighbourhood is currently undergoing.
3. Bodies of Knowledge
   (rough cut, 2017, 2m 23s)
   by Aimee LouwBodies of Knowledge is a short, autoethnographic video poem. In it, filmmaker Aimee Louw explores her relationship to landscape, climate change and personal history as a wheelchair user enjoying Vancouver’s easily accessible sea wall paths. (aimeelouw.com)
4. cruising femmetopia
   (working cut, 2017, 5m 40s)
   by stephen sherman and lucas larochelle, with camerawork by Anne BertrandThis work recasts recreational sex in public space, winding a fantasme of colour into the typical representations of cruising. Femme expressions suggest other arrangements or approaches to outdoor intimacy.
5. Swarm of Selenium
   (trailer, 2017, 1m 6s)
   by The Glass CollectiveA short dystopian queer sci-fi film about communities of care, dreams and toxic trauma.
6. Body Symphony
   (work in progress, 2017, 5m 32s)
   by Simone LucasA study of bodies as spaces, and spaces as bodies, this video was inspired by the idea that bodies and the places they reside in are mutually shaped by each other.
7. This Morning
   (2012, 2m 27s)
   by Momoko AllardA sketched animation recounts a dream about anatomical shifting and sexual confusion.