Welcome to Archive/Counterarchive

Community Partners

Our Community Partners engage with education, training, and outreach activities related to our project.

Archives of Ontario

The mission of the Archives of Ontario is to document the history of Ontario and Ontarians in all their diversity. We collect, preserve, promote, and make available the documentary heritage of the province. The Archives of Ontario is the second largest archives in Canada and provides a window into the past for all Ontarians, connecting us with our ancestors, our communities, and our government. Our customers have access to a unique and multi-faceted collection that includes records dating back to the late 16th century and contains everything from hand-written ledgers to electronic files, hand-drawn maps, architectural drawings, photographs, films, and sound recordings.

Staff

Sean Smith - Senior Archivist, Collections Development and Management Unit

Arnait Video Productions

The goal of Arnait Video Productions (originally the Women’s Video Workshop of Igloolik) is to value the unique culture and voices of Inuit women and to open discussions with Canadians of all origins. Since its beginnings in 1991, Arnait Video Productions has traced a trajectory revealing the originality of its producers, the context of their work and lives, as well as their strong desire to express cultural values unique in Canada.

ArQuives: Canada's LGBT2Q+ Archives

The ArQuives (formally the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives) was established to aid in the recovery and preservation of our histories. Its mandate is to acquire, preserve, organize, and give public access to information and materials in any medium, by and about LGBTQ2+ people, primarily produced in or concerning Canada. In addition The ArQuives maintains a research library, international research files, and an international collection of LGBTQ2+ periodicals.

Land Acknowledgement

The ArQuives is located on the traditional lands of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation, the Haudenosaunee, the Anishnaabe and the Huron-Wendat. Today, Toronto is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land. The ArQuives to gather the stories of the unheard and silenced voices of the 2SLGBTQ+ first peoples of this land. We acknowledge that some stories have already been lost, and we aim to ensure that those that remain and those that are to come are preserved for the future.

Staff

Raegan Swanson - Executive Director

 

Canada Foundation for Innovation

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is a non-profit corporation that invests in research infrastructure at Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals and non-profit research institutions. Since its creation in 1997, the CFI has supported researchers with the cutting-edge facilities, laboratories and equipment they need to push the frontiers of knowledge in all disciplines, to discover and to innovate. This has allowed Canada’s bright minds to contribute to creating a better world, with evidence-based policy-making, better health outcomes, a cleaner, greener environment, more vibrant cultures and more competitive Canadian businesses.

Canadian Film Institute

The Canadian Film Institute’s (CFI) mission is to encourage and promote the production, diffusion, study, appreciation and use of moving images for cultural and educational purposes in Canada and abroad. The CFI is a unique institution that organizes ongoing public film programming and artist talks, provides educational enhancements on its websites and publishes books and monographs on various aspects of Canadian and international cinema.

Canadian Filmmakers Distribution Centre

Established in 1967, CFMDC is a not-for-profit, artist-run centre that has since grown and evolved into a world-renowned distributor of independent media art. We honour our collective history of avant-garde art film, while playing a key-role in determining a more contemporary definition of distribution in the digital milieu. Now in our 52nd year, with 3,700+ films in our catalogue by over 1000 members, CFMDC is one of the most enduring, respected, forward thinking, and engaged distribution centres in Canada.

Staff

Jesse  Brossoit - Distribution Coordinator

Genne Speers - Deputy Director

 

Cinémathèque Québécoise

The Cinémathèque Québécoise is Montreal’s museum of moving images. Its mission is to preserve and promote the world’s audiovisual heritage, with an emphasis on Quebec and Canadian works as well as international animation, and to make it available for cultural and educational purposes.

Staff

Marina Gallet - Director of Conservation and Development of Collections

CineMobilia

CineMobilia is a York University-based mobile media digitization lab dedicated to providing mobile archiving infrastructure to Canadian marginalized communities. CineMobilia has been specifically developed to cater to collections with limited staff, those with difficulty making their collections represented and discoverable, and/or collections representing an underserved/underrepresented group or community.

Since 2022, the lab has worked with the NFB, the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections at York University, The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives, and the Oya Media Group, among others. The infrastructure has also supported independent researchers and artists, including Debbie Ebanks, Franci Duran, and Ali Kazimi. CineMobilia is also hosting its first artist-in-residence, Nada-El-Omari, who will be working with her family's archives.

CineMobilia invites analog film (8mm, Super8, 16mm) and digital video (1" Type C open reel tape, U-Matic, VHS, BetacamSP, Hi8, Digital 8, miniDV) digitization and/or restoration projects. We have also recently started to support the 3D scanning of physical objects as a digitization method as well. Spread the word to relevant communities, organizations, or practitioners that might need preservation assistance.

Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV)

Founded in Montreal in 1975, Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV) is one of the rare artist-run centres across the world dedicated to the promotion of works made by women (in the most inclusive sense) – by distributing and presenting them, as well as by actively supporting their production. GIV has a distribution catalogue of 1,460 works by 370 women artists.

Staff

Anne Golden - Co-artistic Director

Annaëlle Winand - Artistic Director

Véronica Sedano Alvarez - Communications and Special Projects

imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival

imagineNATIVE is the world's largest presenter of Indigenous screen content. The organisation is recognised locally, nationally, and internationally for excellence and innovation in programming and as the global centre for Indigenous media arts. imagineNATIVE (legal entity: The Centre for Aboriginal Media) is a registered charity committed to creating a greater understanding of Indigenous peoples and cultures through the presentation of contemporary Indigenous-made media art (film, video, audio and digital media).

Staff

Naomi Johnson - Executive Director

Library and Archives Canada

As the custodian of our distant past and recent history, Library and Archives Canada (LAC) is a key resource for all Canadians who wish to gain a better understanding of who they are, individually and collectively. LAC acquires, processes, preserves and provides access to our documentary heritage and serves as the continuing memory of the Government of Canada and its institutions.

Gardien du passé, aussi bien que de l’histoire récente, Bibliothèque et Archives Canada (BAC) est une ressource incontournable pour tous les Canadiens qui veulent mieux se connaître eux-mêmes, individuellement et collectivement. BAC acquiert, traite, conserve et diffuse le patrimoine documentaire du Canada en plus d’être la mémoire permanente de l’administration fédérale et de ses institutions.

Media Arts Network of Ontario

The Media Arts Net­work of Ontario/Réseau des arts médi­a­tiques de l’Ontario (MANO/RAMO) is Ontario’s only arts ser­vice orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cated to fur­ther­ing the work of media arts orga­ni­za­tions and the inde­pen­dent artists they rep­re­sent. MANO/RAMO is focused on devel­op­ing respon­sive, inno­v­a­tive, and proac­tive initia­tives that cre­ate mean­ing­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties for media artists and organizations.

Staff

Ben Donoghue - Director

Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery

The Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery seeks to explore the ways in which the practice of contemporary art is in itself a form of research that produces knowledge. Through our exhibitions, publications, events, and programs, we raise awareness and encourage debate in the field of contemporary art. Through our collections, the Belkin contributes to an understanding of the Canadian avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s, the international network developed at that time and its role in the art of today. Across all media and disciplines we emphasize practices and projects that challenge the status quo, support emerging artists and practices, and present artist-initiated projects.

Land Acknowledgement

The UBC Vancouver campus is located on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the Musqueam people. The land it is situated on has always been a place of learning for the Musqueam people, who for millennia have passed on their culture, history, and traditions from one generation to the next on this site.

Staff

Shelly Rosenblum - Curator of Academic Programs

Museum of Anthropology at UBC

Since its inception in 1949, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia has been committed to promoting awareness and understanding of culturally diverse ways of knowing the world through challenging and innovative programs and partnerships with Indigenous, local, and global communities. MOA’s innovative and contemporary exhibitions are made possible through cutting-edge scholarship that cuts across traditional disciplinary divisions to provoke creative engagement and dialogue.

Land Acknowledgement

MOA is located in Vancouver, on the unceded territory of the Musqueam Indian Band | xʷməθkʷəy̓əm.

Staff

Karen Duffek - Curator, Contemporary Visual Arts & Pacific Northwest

National Film Board of Canada

The NFB is Canada’s public producer and distributor of award-winning creative documentaries, auteur animation, interactive stories, and participatory experiences. NFB producers are embedded in communities across the country, from St. John’s to Vancouver, working with talented creators on innovative and socially relevant projects that deliver on the NFB"s mandate to produce works that reflect Canadian lives, perspectives,and experiences to domestic and international audiences. Founded in 1939, the NFB archive houses over 8,000 completed productions in addition to many thousands of hours of rush material, photographic, and paper archives.

Staff

Katherine Kasirer - Senior Librarian 

Queer Media Database Canada-Québec

The goal of the Queer Media Database Canada-Québec Project is to maintain a dynamic online catalogue of LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer) Canadian film, video, and digital works, their makers, and related institutions. This is a bilingual online research and curatorial tool that provides free access to researchers, students, artists, academics, curators, cinephiles, critics, and community members to a rich array of art historical and biographical information about queer moving image works from the 1930s to today looking to program, enjoy, and explore hundreds of works from this diverse encyclopedia. 

Reelout Arts Project Inc

Reelout exists to celebrate queer media arts and to contribute to community vitality by programming materials that focus on issues of sexuality, race, culture, religion, class, gender, ability, health and age, thereby purposefully drawing together and initiating challenging dialogue among disparate members of the queer communities in Kingston and the surrounding area as well as between the larger Kingston community and the queer community.

Staff

Matt Salton - Executive Director

Regent Park Film Festival

Regent Park Film Festival is Toronto’s longest running free community film festival. In addition to the annual film festival and Under the Stars: Movies in the Park, we host year-round film screenings, school programs, and workshops, all at no cost.

Home Made Visible is a nationwide archival project of The Regent Park Film Festival made in partnership with Technical and Commissioning Partner, Charles Street Video (CSV) and Archival Partner, York University Libraries.

The Project responds to the absence of home movie footage from Indigenous and Visible Minority communities in Canada’s media archives. As old film and video tapes threaten to fall apart with time, Home Made Visible works to preserve this history, celebrate the joy captured in home movies, and explore how archives have the power to shape who we become and how we relate to one another.

The Project spans July 2017 to August 2019 and includes three parts; the first part of the Project offers free digitization and archiving of old home movies, while the second part commissions artists to reflect on how archives shape our shared identities and coexistence on this colonized land, and the third final part tours the artists’ work through libraries across Canada along with permitted footage.

Staff

Tendisai Cromwell - Executive Director

Elizabeth Mudenyo - Special Projects Manager

Ananya Ohri - Artistic Director, Home Made Visible

Aashna Thakkar - Manager of Programming

Toronto International Film Festival

TIFF is dedicated to presenting the best of international and Canadian cinema and creating transformational experiences for film lovers and creators of all ages and backgrounds. As Canada's premiere home of cinema, TIFF offers screenings, lectures, discussions, festivals, workshops, events, professional development ,and opportunities to meet, hear, and learn from filmmakers from Canada and around the world.

Land Acknowledgement

The Toronto International Film Festival would like to acknowledge that our building stands on the treaty territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishnaabe, and the Huron-Wendat. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community.

Staff

Keith Bennie - Director, Audience and Community

 

 

Urban Shaman Inc.

Urban Shaman Contemporary Aboriginal Art is a nationally recognized leader in Aboriginal arts programming and one of the foremost venues and voices for Aboriginal art in Canada. Our focus on developing new programming and new ways of presenting it have resulted in increased exposure and the expansion of our activities. Urban Shaman is dedicated to the Aboriginal arts community and arts community at large.

• Committed to serving the needs of emerging, mid-career, and established Aboriginal artists through exhibitions and associated programming, workshops, residencies, and curatorial initiatives.

• Dedicated to contributing to art historical and cultural critical discourses on a local, national, and international level.

• Committed to facilitating artistic production, education, and appreciation of contemporary art as an important and empowering tool for Aboriginal peoples.

Staff

Daina Warren - Director

VIVO Media Arts Centre

VIVO Media Arts Centre is an artist-run media centre (est.1973) in Vancouver, B.C. Our mandate is to directly support artists and independent community-based producers to develop, exchange, and disseminate their skills in a supportive environment through accessible services and programs. We have an extensive public reference library and archive of media art, independent video, and related publications, documents, audio recordings, photographs, technology, and ephemera. Our Special Collections include the personal archives of West Coast artists, community cable programs, and disbanded Vancouver media organizations. VIVO values risk taking and radical paradigms in art production, and we continually support a robust, diverse, and vibrant media arts sector to espouse critical engagement with the material forms and cultural meanings of media and technology.

Staff

Karen Knights - Archive Manager

Vulnerable Media Lab

The work in the state-of-the-art Vulnerable Media Lab is grounded in the understanding that audio-visual cultural heritage has been unequally cared for and that the cultural practices of women and Indigenous peoples are in particular need of a dedicated archival focus and framework. A key objective of the project is to work with “born digital media” alongside a variety of “obsolete” and “marginal” media, all of which share their own kinds of material vulnerabilities. The researchers aim to develop methods and processes to ensure this media art history is preserved and made available according to culturally specific and ethically driven forms of access, thus engaging in new conversations about cultural heritage.

Staff

Susan Lord - Director

Tamara de Szegheo Lang - Project Manager

Ryan Randall - Technician

Dylan Robinson - Co-Applicant

Rosaleen Hill - Co-Applicant

Winnipeg Film Group

The Winnipeg Film Group is an education, production, exhibition, and distribution centre committed to promoting the art of the moving image.

Founded in 1974, the WFG began distributing locally made films in 1981 to help serve Manitoba filmmakers who were creating work, but didn’t have the knowledge or resources to seek out screenings or sales for their work.

Currently we represent hundreds of filmmakers and video artists from across Canada and have an international reputation for providing quirky and thought-provoking works. The films in our collection range from 14 seconds to two hours and span all genres, including narrative fiction, comedy, animation, documentary, experimental, and hybrids of all. We specialize in short form works.

Staff

Monica Lowe - Deputy Director