Images Festival returns for its 30th annual edition April 20 – 27, 2017. The festival is Canada’s largest on and off screen showcase of innovative contemporary art, featuring eight days of screenings, events, performances and exhibitions by local and international artists.
This year’s festival includes 48 on screen films, 12 off screen exhibitions, and 4 live image projects. Images Festival is excited to announce that the festival will be returning to Innis Town Hall, with the opening night feature premiering at The Royal Theatre.
If you are curious about Images Festival, or are looking for suggestions on what to see and experience, here are some suggestions for you all.
ON SCREEN FILMS
International Spotlight: The Activist Cinema of Isaac Julien
Before becoming one of Britain’s most celebrated artists and an international art world powerhouse, Isaac Julien began his career in the early 80’s with the Sankofa Film and Video Collective. For our 30th anniversary, we shine a special international spotlight on Julien’s earliest works, which unfortunately remain prescient as ever.
Who Killed Colin Roach?
Directed by: Isaac Julien
Filmed at the height of civil unrest over police brutality in London, the first film made by Isaac Julien gives light into the death of Colin Roach, a young black man who died under suspicious circumstances inside of a police station. The film focuses on the response by the community when no public enquiry was held.
Multiplicity – International Student Showcase
Curated by: Anastasia Akulinina (York University), Gesilayefa Azorbo (Ryerson University) and Sunny Kim (University of Toronto)
We see here a collection of distinct, individual works that interact with the notion of limitations: subversion of feminine expectations, rethinking of the ontology of national identity, a refusal to conform to a genre, and rejection of formal cinematic structures.
OFF SCREEN EXHIBITIONS
VPN to IRL
Created by: Ronnie Clarke, Marlon Kroll, Sophia Oppel, and Tommy Truong
Guest curated by: Tak Pham
Exploring how our virtual relationships mediate our perception of reality, VPN to IRL inquires into the role of technology in contemporary living. Through four unique media and installation projects, the exhibition transforms Xpace’s gallery into a Virtual Private Network (VPN)—a point-to-point connection established inside a public network that allows secured exchanges of information between users and hosts.
Canadian Artist Spotlight: Deirdre Logue
Featuring: Rita McKeough, Steve Reinke, Eleanor King, Adrienne Crossman, Serena Lee, Cait McKinney, Midi Onodera, and Erika DeFreitas
As an analogous iteration more akin to a floodlight, the 2017 Canadian Artist Spotlight on Deirdre Logue plans to take over three gallery exhibitions. This year’s spotlight will be given over to eight other artists to do whatever they choose, artists who have influenced her in her 25 years as an artist, to artists who she has admired from afar, who she has argued with, and to artists who have looked up to her, critiqued her, and followed her.
LIVE PERFORMANCES
Bläue / Blueness
Created by: Kerstin Schroedinger
Acting as part performer, part scientist, Kerstin Schroedinger engages in a performance-based image production that extends her ongoing research into the multi-layered histories of analog film production.
AFROGALACTICA: A brief history of the future
Created by: Kapwani Kiwanga
As a one night only performance by Paris-based Kapwani Kiwanga, AFROGALACTICA: A brief history of the future features a live reading with video projection, in which Kiwanga takes on the role of a fictional anthropologist to speculate on the future, investigating Afrofuturism as a means to examine the past from an African or African diasporic subjectivity.
Tickets to films and performances range from $10-$20. Want to enjoy the experience? Visit imagesfestival.com for more details.
