- Thursday, September 17, 2015
- MAWA, 611 Main Street
While she is in Winnipeg, Jennifer Dysart will be working with archival footage taken of the community of South Indian Lake in 1969, prior to the flooding that destroyed the lake. In the original 16mm film, the community is reacting to the proposed hydro-electric project that ended-up drastically altering their way of life. Most of the community has yet to see this archival footage, and Jennifer will share it with the displaced community while building a research project centred on it.
At her artist talk, Jennifer will provide a background for this history and her personal relationship with the community by screening Kewekapawetan: Return After The Flood (2014, 30 minutes). In addition, she will discuss her interest in recording reactions to the archival footage, and experimenting with recording and layering of sound and image. She says, "When we use technology to represent truth, that mimics the way the brain is a tool that functions equally to remember and to forget." Jennifer has a special interest in experimental documentary films that blur the boundaries between truth, memory and fiction, which is a interest that she often has to temper when doing historical community research. A similar event will happen the following night at Urban Shaman, 260 McDermot Ave., 7pm.
Presented in partnership with Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art Gallery.
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Jennifer Dysart produces work that blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction, reality and imagination. At heart she is an experimental filmmaker, and yet recent film works are more traditional documentary and/or more traditionally fiction. She is Cree and Scottish-American on her father’s side and German-Canadian on her mother’s side. She grew up traveling a lot, which led to a somewhat unconventional upbringing. Perhaps in response, her work reflects interests in history, tradition and her mixed cultural lineage.
