Umbrella Projects joins forces with SappyFest to present The Cube Show, a night of artist videos and musical performances projected onto the side of Sackville’s beloved 44m tall cranberry and blueberry freezer.
THE CUBE SHOW: Sweetest Sympathy
presented by Umbrella Projects in collaboration with SappyFest August 1, 2020
Umbrella Projects joins forces with SappyFest to present The Cube Show, a night of artist videos and musical performances projected onto the side of Sackville’s beloved 44m tall cranberry and blueberry freezer. The program includes video works by Colin Campbell, Michèle Pearson Clarke, Rita McKeough & Diane Borsato, Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay, Daniel Barrow and Jeremy Dutcher + will feature projected performances by Wares and Lido Pimienta.
The Cube rises from the marsh, 44 metres high, and filled with frozen blueberries, filled with frozen cranberries. But for one night only, The Cube will come alive with a program of projected films and concert performances. The Cube will light up the night sky!
The Cube Show is presented in association with the Owens Art Gallery and SappyFest and with the generous cooperation of Terra Beata and Atlantic Auto Cold.
Colin Campbell Sackville, I’m Yours, 1972 14:40 min An amusing portrait of an artist toughing it out in rural New Brunswick, Sackville, I’m Yours is an iconic work in the early history of queer Canadian video art. Made in Sackville using the reel-to-reel Sony video tape recorder of the Mount Allison University football team, the video features Campbell—performing as his alter ego Art Star—in an ironic conversation with an absent interlocutor. The video says much about life in Sackville in 1972, and its tone often walks a fine line between light-hearted humour and something verging on despair. Although it predates Campbell’s more openly queer works, the oppressive frustration of being unable to publicly express one’s sexual identity is a clear subtext of its narrative. www.vtape.org
Michèle Pearson Clarke
Black Men and Me, 2006
5:57 min
Black Men and Me is an experimental documentary short in which a woman explores her position as a Trinidadian dyke and her complex relationship with black men. Shot in a barbershop, a traditional gathering place for black men, she has her head shaved while she reflects on her black masculinity.
Winner: Best Canadian Female Short Award
Inside Out Toronto Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, May 2007
www.michelepearsonclarke.com
Diane Borsato and Rita McKeough Big Rock Quiet, 2018 4:00 min In this one-shot video, a musician performs a drum-solo in an expansive valley with a mountain vista. Despite the acoustic potential of the site - the sound of the drums is surprisingly at par with - or sometimes even quieter than the surrounding ambience and birdsong. In this perceptually confusing work, the actual sound of drumming is second to a visual spectacle of noise, and to the expression of energy and joy in performance. Inspired by conversations with, and dedicated to Aislinn Thomas. Performer: Rita McKeough Audio Engineering: Ed Renzi The video was produced at the Banff Centre for the Arts, 2018. www.dianeborsato.net
Benny Nemerofsky Ramsay
I am a Boyband, 2002
5:24 min
“All the night my sleeps are full of dreams, my eyes are full of streams, my heart takes no deligh to see the fruits and joys that some do find and mark the storms are me assign'd.”
In this video, the artist performs all four parts of boyband, singing a pop-synth version of an Elizabethan madrigal. It was first screened at the Impakt Festival, the Netherlands, in 2002. Its gallery première was in the Neverending Song of Love exhibition at Plug In ICA in 2004. The video won First Prize at the WRO Media Arts Biennale (Wroclaw), the Festival Prize at the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, and the Video Prize at the Hamburg Short Film Festival, all in 2003. It is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada.
nemerofsky.ca
Daniel Barrow A Miracle, 2003 2:37 min A Miracle is a video created for Toronto-based "gay church folk" musicians, The Hidden Cameras, that demonstrates Barrow’s live animation techniques. The video features a young boy lying in bed, using the light of the moon to make shadow puppets on his bedroom walls. While experimenting with forms, he summons the spirit of a huge, fruity, bird-like creature with the profile of an owl, and the feathers of an ostrich. The creature shares a brief, romantic exchange with the boy before swallowing him whole, and then regurgitating, twisting and compressing his indigestible parts into a gizzard-shaped ball. In the end, the owl flies out the window, leaving the boy standing naked and cold in his room. The boy ultimately finds resolve by creating a gliding, self-representational plane, symbolically reuniting with the owl. danielbarrow.com
Jeremy Dutcher Mehcinut (Official Music Video), 2019 5:47 min In addition to an iconic dance performance choreographed by two-spirit Indigenous dancer and artist Brian Solomon, which is danced by an all Indigenous dance group and includes a special guest performance by actress Tantoo Cardinal, the official music video for Jeremy Dutcher’s “Mechinut” features the “Table of Indigenous Excellence”—an adapted version of multi-disciplinary Montreal artist Emily Jan’s installation After the Hunt. Seated at the table are Indigenous cultural leaders, artists, filmmakers, musicians, and activists, including Lido Pimienta, Alanis Obomsawin, Betasamosake Simpson, Tim ‘2oolman’ Hill: & Bear Witness, Asinnajaq Weetaluktuk, Arielle Twist, Chief Lady Bird, and Emma Hassencahl-Perley. This video was created thanks to the generous support of the MVP Project, a joint initiative of RBCxMusic and the Prism Prize (administered by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television), and with the support of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, FACTOR (The Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings), and the Ontario Arts Council. jeremydutcher.com