COAL MINES AND TREE TOPS
This body of work titled Coal Mines and Tree Tops follows the main character, a canary through different scenarios meant to represent an autistic experience. These images represent the experiences of the artist, Dani. However, they are meant to be related to by anyone who finds a connection to the work. This body of work discusses Dani’s personal experiences as an autistic person. Dani chose the canary as a visual metaphor for strength, sensitivity, vulnerability, and perceived expendability. Each piece explores a different experience and their creation has helped Dani process these experiences, some for the first time. In this series, Dani visually discusses subject matter such as: positive connection, strengths, relationships, abuse, sensory management and overwhelm, vulnerability to predatory individuals, coping mechanisms, the weight of masking and more.
“I decided to create this work about my experiences because I finally feel safe to do so. I feel it is time to remember out loud, to create visual evidence of past and present challenges and joys associated with my identity. I feel it is time to start sharing my experiences with others. This is a first step in what I hope will be an ongoing discussion in my work. This work serves to benefit me therapeutically and also possibly provide others with understanding and a sense of compassion between myself and those who have had similar experiences.” -Dani Crosby
Dani Crosby is an artist, illustrator, arts educator and community collaborator working and living in central Oshawa. Art has become many things for Dani – a service they offer and an experience to share in academic settings. But before any of these things it serves as a place to put the parts of themselves that have nowhere else to go. Dani recognizes how lucky they are to have this outlet. Dani has been making art since childhood and has never stopped. They began showing, creating illustrations, and teaching visual arts in 2004 and continue to this day.
Keywords: Alcoholism | Anxiety | Depression | Trauma
PANEL:
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: CHANGING THE NARRATIVE
AUTISTIC REELS: RECLAIMING OUR STORIES
Sun, Oct 31, 1 PM ET
Note: The link to the virtual panel is accompanied with the film ticket to “Autistic Reels: Reclaiming Our Stories”.
All films are PWYW
ACCESSIBILITY
ALSO OF INTEREST
TOURS
Watch Leena Raudvee take part of the virtual guided tour of the In(site) exhibition held on Sat, Oct 30, 12 PM ET
HYBRID PRECARITY
Leena Raudvee
Hybrid Precarity is a series of pen and ink drawings that has emerged out of a daily drawing practice from the last year of pandemic related anxieties and isolation. It is superimposed, by necessity, on ongoing issues of vulnerability, disability and the precariousness of severely limited mobility.
As internal self-portraits, these drawings respond to changes in Raudvee’s emotional and physical body, as body in process, and become records of the evolving dis-eased body. They are reflections on a strangely hybrid identity, attached to walking aids and no longer wholly human.
Hybrid Precarity is an online slideshow of black and white drawings, accompanied by a sound recording of dissonant sounds, of things creaking and broken.
Leena Raudvee is a Toronto-based visual and performance artist, who focuses on the body in relation to personal history and social interchange.
Raudvee’s drawings, which investigate the performative embodied within the drawing of a line, have been exhibited in numerous juried shows including Drawing 2021 at the John B. Aird Gallery, Drawing Unlimited at the Propeller Gallery and Unpacking Pandemic Pondering with OCADU and Gallery 1313.
In performance art, Raudvee has explored disability and aging in Teetering on an Edge for Pi*llOry in Toronto and in Making Space, as video, screened in Photophobia 2020, presented by Hamilton Artists Inc. and Hamilton Art Gallery.
Keywords: Disability | Trauma
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Recipient of the Ontario Arts Council grant for Deaf and Disability Arts Projects:
Materials for Visual Artists
ALSO OF INTEREST
WATCH ONLINE
Oct 29 – Nov 7 available across Canada
VIRTUAL Q&A
Mon, Nov 1, 5 PM ET
ACCESSIBILITY
Carolina Moscoso / 2019 / Spanish with English Subtitles / Chile / 80 mins / Toronto Premiere
Few challenges are harder for a first-time filmmaker than the one Carolina Moscoso set for herself: to make a film based on the rape she was the victim of eight years before, when she was a film school student. The title Visión Nocturna refers to a function that allows digital cameras to film at night, to see in the dark, by enhancing their sensitivity. In order to give form to this darkness, Moscoso coordinates two kinds of contrasting materials and narrative modes. A silent linear account, via a text printed on shots or on a dark background, establishes the naked facts of the rape and its violence, prolonged by a legal process that failed to acknowledge it and to see justice through. In the background or in the gaps of this account, the editing arranges disparate fragments out of the raw footage that she has been shooting for the past fifteen years, as a kind of diary. Joyful, carefree scenes with friends, or solitary impressions; no comment, no explanation that reveals the secret. Only by delving into the silence, and cultivating this secret, does Visión Nocturna pull off the impossible feat of sharing the unshareable. (description courtesy FIDMarseille Festival)
SCREENING WITH JULIETA Y LA LUNA / JULIETA AND THE MOON
Milena Castro Etcheberry | 2020 | Chile | 8 min | Spanish with English subtitles
Julieta’s voice tries to reconstruct the family history of sexual abuse from her childhood, traveling
through the house in which it occurred. The place seems empty; however, she comes to life with the
projection on the walls of the family archive material of the protagonist.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH Carolina Moscoso and Milena Castro Etcheberry
Please join Directors Carolina Moscoso and Milena Castro Etcheberry for a virtual Q&A to discuss
the experience of creating their haunting films. The discussion will be moderated by Tamara
Toledo, a curator and writer from Latin American-Canadian Art Projects.
Keywords: Gender | Rape | Sexual violence | Trauma
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
WATCH ONLINE
Oct 29 – Nov 7 available across Canada
PRE-RECORDED VIRTUAL Q&A
Available with the film
ACCESSIBILITY
Angelo Madsen Minax / 2021 / English / USA / 76 mins / Canadian Premiere
After the inconclusive death of his young niece, filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax returns to his rural Michigan hometown to make a film about a broken criminal justice system. Instead, he pivots to excavate the depths of generational addiction, Christian fervor and trans embodiment. Lyrically assembled images, decades of home movies and ethereal narration form an idiosyncratic and poetic undertow that guide a viewer through lifetimes and relationships. Like the relentless Michigan seasons, the meaning of family shifts, as Madsen Minax, his sister and his parents strive tirelessly to accept each other. Poised to incite more internal searching than provide clear statements or easy answers, North By Current dives head-first into the challenges of creating identity, the agony of growing up and the ever-fickle nuances of family.
“For me, a personal, first-person approach to storytelling was the only way to make North By Current. My own voice is the only one I feel capable of representing. This merger of personal and political storytelling became an opportunity for my family members and myself to converse, collaborate, and create together — our own version of transformative justice.” — Angelo Madsen Minax
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: Q&A WITH ANGELO MADSEN MINAX
Watch a pre-recorded Q&A with the filmmaker Angelo Madsen Minax about his experience creating the deeply intimate personal documentary North By Current. The discussion is moderated by Mike Hoolboom, a filmmaker and writer who lives in Toronto and director of Rendezvous 2020 opening film Judy Versus Capitalism.
Keywords: Addictions | Family | Gender | Religion | Trauma
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
ALSO OF INTEREST
Ousmane Samassékou / 2021 / Bambara, Moore, French and English, with English subtitles / Mali, France, South Africa / 85 mins
The Malian city of Gao in western Africa has for decades been a peaceful haven for hopeful migrants.
On the edge of the Sahel desert lies the House of Migrants, a temporary home for thousands of people every year. The hopeful ones are on their way to Europe alongside those whose luck ran out and who are now on their way back to their hometowns and families across Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin and beyond.
Documentarian Samassékou listens to two young girls and a middle-aged woman lying in a small room and exchanging dreams and stories. Elsewhere in the house, young men are watching wrestling on TV. Samassékou’s attentive camera frames the faces, the voices and their stories in a uniquely beautiful and humane film no longer solely about having a home. The atmosphere in the house itself expresses the melancholy of exile through calm, intimate and vulnerable images. All around the city, new and old wars are taking place in the endless desert.
SCREENING WITH IN-TENTS
Stephanie Nakashima and Scott Morris | 2021 | Canada | 11 min | English
In this brand new diaristic documentary we follow individuals who are experiencing homelessness in
Hamilton, Ontario and learn their experiences with systemic barriers to housing and health care in the
midst of a global pandemic.
Keywords: Freedom | Im/migration | Refugees | Trauma
COMMUNITY PARTNERS
ALSO OF INTEREST
Todd Haynes / 1995 / English / United Kingdom/USA / 119 mins
We’re thrilled to be presenting a special 25th-ish anniversary screening of the seminal film Safe by
Todd Haynes which was presented at the third Rendezvous With Madness in 1995. This retrospective
could not be more timely given the current coronavirus pandemic we’ve all been living through since
spring 2020; nor can the serendipitous timing of Halloween; this is a quintessential horror film as seen
through the character of Carol White (played magnificently by Julianne Moore).
Set in 1987, the film follows White, a well-to-do California housewife who suddenly finds herself struggling to breathe while doctors continually insist that nothing is amiss with her health. Before long, Carol self diagnoses herself to be reacting to the toxic chemicals around her stating emphatically that she’s “allergic to the 20th century.” When Safe was originally released many viewers viewed Carol’s
plight as a metaphor for the HIV/AIDS epidemic; in 2021 it’s both that pandemic and the current one
that will leave their marks on you long after the film’s credits roll.
SCREENING WITH FORM 1
Jubal Brown | 2021 | Canada | English | 13 min
Commissioned by the non-profit organization Asylum From Psychiatry and Marta McKenzie, this
film is largely based on patient experiences in the mental health care systems in Canada. Found
footage sourced from movies and television are used to create an abstract narrative illustrating the
traumas experienced by patients in psychiatric institutions.
Keywords: Chemical Sensitivity | Environmental Illness| Family | Trauma | Virus
COMMUNITY PARTNER
“I wanted to bring up the behaviour that we
all exhibit around illness, particularly in the
way we try to attach meaning and personal responsibility to illness and how much illness
and identity are mixed up with each other,
… Safe feels like this allegory about all kinds
of indeterminate and imprecise notions of
health, well-being and immunity in peril.”
—Todd Haynes
ALSO OF INTEREST
Chelsy Althea, Kasia Beloussov, Alissa Dawn, Angela Feng, Béatrice Langlois-Bettez, Vyom Malhotra, Maud Mostly, Maneesa Veerave, Muchen Zhou / 2021 / Canada / 60 mins
For the fifth consecutive year, If You Ask Me (IYAM) has supported emerging filmmakers with mental
health and/or addiction experiences to create new work. This year’s program features nine shorts by
filmmakers from across Canada.
These new films were developed in summer 2021 under the guidance of Helena Morgane and IYAM alumni and mentors Malaika Athar, Hanna Donato, Samyuktha Movva, and Shubhi Sahni. Over three
months, filmmakers have strengthened their knowledge of film in the company of peers and industry
guests. Rendezvous is excited to screen these distinctly personal works created during extraordinary circumstances.
JOIN THE CONVERSATION: FILMMAKING NOW
The world has changed substantially since the initial planning of If You Ask Me 2021. This year’s
cohort of filmmakers adapted their practices to ever-changing conditions. Join the Q + A session
to learn how recent events informed the production of their films and hear their predictions on
how this time will shape the future of film.
Keywords: Addiction | Trauma | Youth
ALSO OF INTEREST
Trauma-Informed Boundary Setting and Conflict Resolution
This workshop will be a hands-on, participant-focused learning about and practice with boundary setting and addressing conflict. As we build skills for boundary setting, we do so understanding boundary-setting and -maintaining can sometimes be particularly challenging for those of us with lived experience of trauma. In pairs and small groups we will assess, understand and make note of where we are each at with different types of boundaries in our lives. We will then practice communicating them. We will also use real-life case examples to explore how to address boundary-crossing conflicts, both when they come up and how we may prevent them. Key workshop techniques practiced will be:
- Understanding & setting different types of boundaries
- Assertive communication paired with active listening
- Calling-In
- De-escalation
Sheila
Wilmot, Ph.D.
Facilitator
Sheila has been engaged in collaborative consulting work with arts organizations since 2014, in the intersecting areas of conflict resolution and equity-focused practice. Topics have particularly included an attention to whiteness and racism. The work has included research, workshop design and delivery, training and policy guide development, and conflict mediation.
She teaches in the Community Engagement, Development and Leadership certificate program at Ryerson University (The Chang School). She is the Subject Matter Expert for the Community Engagement Practices and Capstone courses she has taught since 2013.
She was the staff Equity Officer for a union Local for almost 14 years. She successfully negotiated equity-related contract provisions, and effectively represented union members in human rights focused- grievances and complaints.
Sheila holds a PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from OISE/University of Toronto (2011). She is also the author of Taking responsibility, taking direction: White anti-racism in Canada (Arbeiter Ring, 2005).
- February 11, 1:00-4:30 pm
- on Zoom
Cost
General: $50
Workman Arts Members: FREE
Workman Arts Community Partners: $25
If you are a member, please email Justina Zatzman at justina_zatzman@workmanarts.com to receive a coupon code.
If you are a community partner, please email Kais Padamshi at kais_padamshi@workmanarts.com to receive a coupon code.
Once you register, you will receive an automatic confirmation of your registration by email. Following this, you will receive an email confirming your registration in the Zoom session. This email will include the link to join the workshop.
BROWSE CURRENT EVENTS
No recommended events under this criteriaTrauma-Informed Boundary Setting and Conflict Resolution
This workshop will be a hands-on, participant-focused learning about and practice with boundary setting and addressing conflict. As we build skills for boundary setting, we do so understanding boundary-setting and -maintaining can sometimes be particularly challenging for those of us with lived experience of trauma. In pairs and small groups we will assess, understand and make note of where we are each at with different types of boundaries in our lives. We will then practice communicating them. We will also use real-life case examples to explore how to address boundary-crossing conflicts, both when they come up and how we may prevent them. Key workshop techniques practiced will be:
- Understanding & setting different types of boundaries
- Assertive communication paired with active listening
- Calling-In
- De-escalation
Sheila
Wilmot, Ph.D.
Facilitator
Sheila has been engaged in collaborative consulting work with arts organizations since 2014, in the intersecting areas of conflict resolution and equity-focused practice. Topics have particularly included an attention to whiteness and racism. The work has included research, workshop design and delivery, training and policy guide development, and conflict mediation.
She teaches in the Community Engagement, Development and Leadership certificate program at Ryerson University (The Chang School). She is the Subject Matter Expert for the Community Engagement Practices and Capstone courses she has taught since 2013.
She was the staff Equity Officer for a union Local for almost 14 years. She successfully negotiated equity-related contract provisions, and effectively represented union members in human rights focused- grievances and complaints.
Sheila holds a PhD in Adult Education and Community Development from OISE/University of Toronto (2011). She is also the author of Taking responsibility, taking direction: White anti-racism in Canada (Arbeiter Ring, 2005).
- January 21, 1:00-4:30 pm
- on Zoom
Cost
General: $50
Workman Arts Members: FREE
Workman Arts Community Partners: $25
If you are a member, please email Justina Zatzman at justina_zatzman@workmanarts.com to receive a coupon code.
If you are a community partner, please email Kais Padamshi at kais_padamshi@workmanarts.com to receive a coupon code.
Once you register, you will receive an automatic confirmation of your registration by email. Following this, you will receive an email confirming your registration in the Zoom session. This email will include the link to join the workshop.
BROWSE CURRENT EVENTS
No recommended events under this criteriaa note from Oliver Jane, Creator of Jo Don’t Go There
Sometimes the “show must not go on” and that’s ok.
When I made the decision to not move forward with my piece Jo Don’t Go There in Rendezvous with Madness 2020, I was encouraged by my friend and contact at Workman Arts to write a short reflection for all of you in lieu of the show. Here you will find some rambling, musing, and reflecting. Thank you for taking a brief moment to reflect with me.
When I agreed to move forward with the project several months ago, I was excited by the challenge of transferring my live performance pieces to video web content. Unfortunately, I found that meeting the demands of a precarious/always changing pandemic environment made completing the project difficult. I am an artist that lives with chronic pain, Rheumatoid Arthritis, PTSD symptoms, and OCD symptoms. The greatest lesson I have learned from managing all of these is that I should not go beyond my limits. Unfortunately, working in solo-isolation and not having funding to adequately compensate others to do the much-needed-tasks to make this project show-ready was bringing me close to my limits.
Since I made the choice to pause the show, the phrase “the show must go on” has been echoing through my mind. Upon reflecting on the nagging presence of this phrase within my mind, I recall that I have, almost exclusively, operated within creative environments where that sentence is espoused. I have worked in so many creative environments where the expectation to see a show to its completion is demanded of artists, producers, and production teams: no matter the cost. My years training to be an artist and working professionally have been colored by watching many friends and colleagues sacrifice their physical and mental health to see work to its completion. For many years I have wondered if creative communities should let go of the phrase “the show much go on” and refrain from normalizing the practice of sacrificing physical and mental wellness amongst artists. What I have witnessed in theatre schools and amongst theatre makers has made me consciously attempt to avoid working myself beyond my limits so that I do not worsen my already-sometimes-very-challenging health.
So I say once again, to comfort myself and to encourage those who find themselves also facing projects, businesses, and plans that need to be put on pause, closed, or canceled as a result of the pandemic: “the show must not go on” and that’s ok.
I’d like to offer gratitude to the team who has assisted me during this process. Though the show will not be viewed in this festival, I am continuing the reflect on and develop the body of work I have made thus far. I feel I must offer my deep gratitude to all those who gave me their time and talents.
- I am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with my older brother, a very skilled video editor, who has been a cherished peer, mentor, and teacher (of art and life) for these last several months.
- I am grateful to the handful of talented musician friends who were willing to do some work on this project for free, for very low fees, or for barter.
- I am grateful to Workman Arts for supporting me as I adjusted the show to the changes brought about by the pandemic. This is my second experience working with Workman Arts, and I cannot emphasize enough how much I appreciate the work Kelly, Scott, Cara, Paulina, and the rest of the team working behind the scenes at Workman Arts do to make this really special festival happen. And during a pandemic, no less!
- Finally, I am grateful for organizations like Workman Arts that are actively striving to foster greater diversity of representation within the Ontario and Toronto creative community. I hope you all will continue to support and patronize Workman Arts even after the festival has passed.
I hope you enjoy the rest of the festival, you remember to stay safe, you do what you can to support and aid the most vulnerable in our communities, you donate to groups and organizations that are trying to address the already existing racial and economic inequality within North America that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, and you all focus your energies on taking care of your immunity and your mental health while the world faces global crisis. I know I will!
I send love and gratitude to you all.
-Oliver Jane
goat(h)owl theatre / Lead Artist, Performer, Creator, Writer: Oliver Jane / Collaborator, Performer: Leah Pritchard / Collaborator, Performer: Jillian Rees-Brown / Video Collaborator, Editor: Jon Jorgensen
GENRE: MULTIMEDIA, PERFORMANCE ART, THEATRE
TOPIC: ACTIVISM, ANXIETY, BI-POLAR DISORDER(S), DEPRESSION, DISABILITY, FAMILY, PSYCHIATRY, RACISM, SCHIZOPHRENIA, SEXUAL ASSAULT, SEXUAL VIOLENCE, SUICIDE, TRAUMA
Enter the mind of Jo, a nonbinary trauma survivor, video artist and clown. Meet Jo’s consciousness embodied: their performative imaginary friend Oli Oli Ennui, a snarky clown who doesn’t take all this modern art stuff too seriously. If you know Jo’s personal story (hailing from NYC, navigating OCD and PTSD while occupying space in Toronto during the pandemic), do you know Jo? If you hear Oli sing punk-injected cabaret, do you know their soul? Experience Jo’s multimedia happening: a video series, music playlists, Instagram uploads, photo exhibition and a live installation performance at 651 Dufferin Street. This collection of fragments resonates in permanent refrain: Do you know me now?
Founded by Maria Wodzinska and Oliver Jane in 2017, goat(h)owl generates collaboratively devised experiences. Grounded in the body, at the core of every piece is a question. We take flight through our investigation of the thematic territory, of our position to the question, and of our will-to-know. We attempt to affirm the unknowable with proposals — playing in-front-of/with/around an audience. We want to shake up sedimented modalities of meaning and truth-telling with our moving ensemble. We point the eye to the kaleidoscope of forms created. Do we invite the audience to make meaning? Yes. Do we make meaning? Come and see.
CONTENT WARNINGS
Loud Sounds, Mature Language, Nudity, Rape and/or Sexual Violence, Sexual Content, Suicide