Virtual Space

Nov 15 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm |
Nov 16 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm |
Nov 17 11:00 am to 8:00 pm

Open to public, no reservation required.

In this year’s Virtual Space, VR and video-based projects illuminate what it means to inhabit ground: the rituals of making home, losing it, and remembering its limits and triumphs to foresee diasporic and Indigenous futurities. With works that range from employing Virtual Reality in their installation, to personal archives of the home video and the televisual, this room asks where we stand, and in moments of fraught community, who do we stand with.

Made This Way: Redefining Masculinity

Year: 2018
Genre: Mixed Media Installation/Virtual Reality
Country: Canada
Language: English
Length: 18 min

Comprised of photographs and virtual reality volumetric testimonials, Made This Way: Redefining Masculinity is an interactive mixed-media documentary that explores how transgender subjects are challenging gender norms and redefining traditional masculinity. By exploring the photographic series, and by moving around the virtual space in which the subjects exist, this Project allows audiences to viscerally experience fluid masculinity.

By

Elli Raynai and Irem Harnak

Elli Raynai is a writer, producer, director, and VR filmmaker. He formed the production company Cinehackers in early 2015 to focus on making interactive virtual reality experiences with a strong focus on storytelling. Before getting into the medium, he had completed two feature films and eight short films.

Irem Harnak is a visual artist born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, and has then lived and studied in London. She is a photographer interested in creating narratives through her own visual language. Her editorial work has been in publications such as Marie Claire China, Flare and Fashion.

Biidaaban: First Light

Year: 2018
Genre: Virtual Reality
Country: Canada
Language: Wendat, Kanien'keha (Mohawk) and Anishinaabemowin
Audio: English subtitles
Length: 6-8 min

The town square is flooded. The infrastructure has merged with local flora and people commute via canoe. In this radically different future, urban life is thriving. Biidaaban: First Light illuminates how Indigenous languages can provide a framework for understanding our place in a reconciled version of Canada’s largest urban environment.

By

Lisa Jackson, Matthew Borrett, Jam3, and the National Film Board of Canada

Lisa Jackson (Anishinaabe) is one of Canada’s most celebrated contemporary artists working in film and VR. In Biidaaban: First Light, Lisa joins forces with 3D artist Mathew Borrett to create a future for Canada’s largest urban centre from an Indigenous female perspective.

where now?

Year: 2018
Genre: Documentary / Video Installation
Country: Canada
Language: English
Audio: English subtitles
Length: 104 min

Produced by sisterhood media, where now? is a narrative-driven documentary series expounding on what Toronto and its residents truly stand to gain — and, of course, lose — in its climb to become an internationally-recognized cultural hub. Who reaps the benefits? And who is its first casualty?

By

Amani Bin Shikhan

Amani Bin Shikhan is a music and culture writer, researcher on the Netflix series Hip-Hop Evolution, and director. In her work, she aims to frame and reframe questions of tradition and movement through the lens of black cultural expressions and their multidisciplinary histories.

Reunion; self-determination of the Black American South

Year: 2018
Genre: Mixed Media Installation
Country: Canada
Language: English

A painting and multi-media installation that creates a personal, emotional space for the viewer to step into – a Reunion – meeting family, and home(land), for the first time.

By

Melisse Watson

Melisse Watson is a disruptionist, earthworker and multidisciplinary artist, utilizing direct action, performance, visual, aural and installation art to provoke experiences that shift a viewers’ course. Through archiving of activism by Black and Indigenous peoples in Tkaronto, and exploring access, gender, conflict, Melisse explores speculative futures and their preparations.