Artists, archivists, and researchers engage with analog and legacy digital materials, many of which are at-risk. Explore different ways of assessing these media at Archival Atelier, A/CA’s new series of workshops devoted to varied media types and their preservation.
"MATERIAL IN THE MARGINS: EXPERIMENTAL FILM, THE ARCHIVE AND EPHEMERALITY"
March 25, 2022. 4:30-6:00 PM EST, on Zoom
Instructors: Kelly Egan (Trent University) and Mark Toscano (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive)
Spanning nonstandard examples of experimental film, hybrid media artworks, and even films which are meant to deteriorate as part of their construction, Mark Toscano and Kelly Egan have discussed themes at the periphery of permanence and preservation for more than a decade. In this seminar, we open this discourse to the public, to ponder the incongruities in theoretical perspectives and mainstream practices of preservation while considering the potential that emerges from these considerations.
Dr. Kelly Egan is Associate Professor in Cultural Studies at Trent University whose work focuses on materiality and obsolescence, looking beyond hierarchal canonical and linear histories. She holds an MFA in Film/Video from Bard College (2006), a Certificate in Film Preservation from the Selznick School of Film Preservation at the George Eastman Museum (2012) and PhD in Communication and Culture from York/Ryerson University (2013).
Mark Toscano is a curator, film preservationist, and educator based in Los Angeles. Since 2003, he has worked at the Academy Film Archive, where he specializes in the curation, conservation, and restoration of independent and artists’ films, overseeing the collections of more than 150 filmmakers. He has presented programs at various international venues, including MoMA, Centre Pompidou, Eye Filmmuseum, and festivals in London, Zagreb, Bangalore, Seoul, and elsewhere. He is a programmer with Los Angeles Filmforum, and since 2015 he has taught in the Experimental Animation program at the California Institute of the Arts.
The Archival Atelier workshop series is organized by Jean-Pierre (JP) Marchant. Jean-Pierre Marchant has over 10 years of experience as a filmmaker, editor, and colorist. His films, which span multiple genres, are concerned with things that grow in the ‘spaces in between’: between capitalist promises and suburban disappointments, urban landscapes and their hinterlands, personalities in conflict, and diasporic lives and the memories left behind. His most recent work uses found and archival footage, his parents’ home movies, narration, and remediation to tell stories that complicate conventional narratives of trauma, Latin American migration, and exile. He is a graduate of the York University MFA program.