Join us for the inaugural iteration of the Archive/Counter-Archive Working Papers Series, which brings together PhD students from different Universities to hear about exciting doctoral research in the area of archival studies. Our first speaker is Dr. Jonathan Petrychyn (PhD, Communication & Culture, York and Ryerson University). Based on his dissertation research, “A Network of Feelings: Affective Economies of Queer & Feminist Film Festivals on the Canadian Prairies,” Jonathan’s talk will explore the affective dimensions of queer and feminist archives in the Prairies, and will be followed by a Q&A with the audience, moderated by our student organizers, Michael Marlatt and Axelle Demus.

Indigenous peoples have drawn connections across vast distances, continents, and bodies of water for thousands of years, revealing the space between us as a potential site for sharing knowledge, experience, and technology. Working from the Pacific view of water (moana and vai) as a mode of connection between islands, and by extension, Turtle Island (North America), these exhibitions will explore the transference of ideas through various media across geographic distances, timespans, and cultures. Together these artists delve into the sharing of knowledge and postulate locations of connection in the future, including imagined concepts of place. Presented with by imagineNATIVE, Trinity Square, A Space Gallery, and CFMDC, and curated by GLAM collective with Noor Bhangu.

A/CA's Distinguished Speaker Series kicks off in September with "Living Archive: Archive work as social and political practice," a talk by Berlin-based film and video curator Stefanie Schulte Strathaus.

A/CA Post-Doctoral fellow Ryan Conrad is sharing new work in Ottawa! Join us for an artist talk and panel on the mythologies and realities of the 1969 Criminal Code reform and its impact on the lives of queers, sex workers, and those seeking abortions. The event will begin with a brief talk and screening from artist/activist Ryan Conrad. Ryan’s talk will be followed by context-setting commentary from Tom Hooper, Ummni Khan and Darrah Teitel.

Examining queer life on the 50th anniversary of 1969, this lucid, critical, and playful exhibition features archival works from the collections of VIVO Media Arts, Vidéographe, les Archives gaies du Québec, the ArQuives, and ARTEXTE, alongside works by collectives such as the Front de Libération Homosexuelle and works that flutter out of the archive by contemporary artists Hazel Meyer, David Widgington and Projet Hybris.

This year, the Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film premieres three films made in the Saugeen Takes on Film (STOF) workshop, supported by Archive/Counter-Archive. STOF is a result of a collaboration of the Saugeen First Nation Employment and Training Centre, Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film, and the Film Farm.

Join us for the book launch and reception of Process Cinema: Handmade Film in the Digital Age, co-edited by Scott MacKenzie and A/CA Project Director Janine Marchessault. The book contains essays by numerous A/CA collaborators and partners, and is the “first book to trace the development of handmade and hand-processed film in its historical and contemporary contexts, and from a global perspective” (2019, McGill-Queen’s University Press).

A/CA Co-Applicant Jules Pidduck and A/CA Community Partner MediaQueer Database present an installation evoking the legendary bar Chez Madame Arthur (1971-1975), alongside never-before-seen photographs by Montreal photographer Suzanne Girard. After hours Chez Madame Arthur conjures the poetry, the seduction, the politics, and the fierceness of Montreal lesbian bars of the 1970s and 1980s.

Archive/Counter-Archive's Project Manager Aimée Mitchell will be moderating a panel on LGBTQ+ archives, featuring A/CA Community Partner Raegan Swanson (Executive Director of The ArQuives), Antoine Idier, Rebecka Sheffield, Courtnay McFarlane, and Philip Pike.

This event is in conversation with Archivist-in-Residence Sophie Roberge's "Every Queer Thing" project at VIVO 2019. Multi-media artists Chase Joynt and Chris E. Vargas are working at the epicenter of contemporary trans representational practice and visual culture. Trans Archival Futures is a presentation of their recent film and archival work: Vargas’ project MOTHA: Museum of Transgender Hirstory & Art which was recently on display at the New Museum, and Joynt’s short film Framing Agnes.

To commemorate and problematize the 50th anniversary of this milestone, the Queer Media Database Canada-Québec (hereafter, MEDIAQUEER) has planned an ambitious series of screenings and archival exhibitions entitled “69 Positions: Decriminalization in the Queer Canadian and Quebec Archive” in which we will screen landmark works of film in tandem with archival exhibitions about the history of (and around) this paradigm shift.

Experience archives through a personal lens with the short film program of Home Made Visible, Regent Park Film Festival's nation-wide archival project. Join us after for a panel discussion with the HMV team and filmmakers.