Rendezvous is thrilled to be presenting a spotlight on Thirza Cuthand, a prolific artist who works
across multiple disciplines to explore interconnected issues related to madness, queer identities,
Indigeneity, and oh yes, sex and sexuality.
EXTRACTIONS (2020 | 15 min) A personal film about so-called Canada’s extraction industries and
the detrimental effects on the land and Indigenous peoples.
ANHEDONIA (2001 | 9 min) Depression and suicide are met head on in this confessional piece.
Anhedonia urges the viewer to open their eyes to the source of illness in Indigenous communities.
SIGHT (2012 | 3 min) Super 8 footage layered with Sharpie marker lines and circles obscuring the
image illustrates the filmmaker’s experiences with temporary episodes of migraine-related blindness
and her cousin’s self-induced blindness..
LOVE & NUMBERS (2004 | 8 min) A Two Spirited woman surrounded by spy signals and psychiatric
walls attempts to make sense of love, global paranoia and her place in the history of colonialism.
LESS LETHAL FETISHES (2019 | 9 min) “Not a sex video. Maybe a sexy video? About a latent gas
mask fetish, but maybe actually about a certain art world tear gas controversy the filmmaker was
involved in.” – T.C.
MEDICINE BUNDLE (2020 | 9 min) “A film about a bundle that was used in my family to heal by Great
Great Grandfather from a smallpox epidemic and a life threatening wound from a gun used against
him during the Battle of Cutknife Hill in 1885.” – T.C.
WOMAN DRESS (2019 | 6 min) A montage of archival images and dramatized re-enactments, this
film shares a Cuthand family oral story, honouring and respecting Woman Dress without imposing
colonial binaries on them.
NEUROTRANSMITTING (2021 | 8 min) In her most recent piece to date, Cuthand and her mother,
Ruth, explore wellness as it connects to mental health, psychiatric institutions, family and the medical
industrial complex. The intimate conversation is held over a backdrop of Ruth’s beaded scans of brains
affected by mental illness.
