Visual Collections Repository

11/24/2023

Join us at the VCR for a screening of Natalie Wood’s experimental short, Time Will Come (2018) and Dionne Brand’s documentary Long Time Comin’ (1993).

This selection of films were pulled from a program curated by one of our past curators-in-residence, Desirée de Jesús. Her residency project, a curated film series called rupture//rapture, creates spaces and evokes a practice to think through Black life and the meanings associated with its audiovisual representation.

The link to register can be found in the linktree in our bio!

Desirée's short film, ASK ME WHAT MY NAME IS, is currently being shown in the FOFA Gallery’s Black Box for the Black Arts Series Film Screening in collaboration with the , and the VCR.

The screening Looking In, Looking Out showcases the work of six Black creatives who are part of the Concordia community. The short films are available to watch until December 15th!

10/23/2023

Bill Gun's surreal and hauntingly beautiful seminal take on Blaxploitation and horror, G***a & Hess (1973) will be screened at the VCR this Wednesday!

Tickets are almost sold out for this screening so don't miss out!! Link to register can be found in our bio & stay tuned for more! 🦇🩸

10/23/2023

10/21/2023

Join us on Wednesday at the VCR for a special halloween viewing of Bill Gun's surreal and hauntingly beautiful seminal take on Blaxploitation and horror, G***a & Hess (1973). 🩸 🦇 🧛‍♀️ You can find the link in our bio to register for this screening, seats are limited!!

05/19/2023

A glimpse into Kapwani Kiwanga’s ‘Structural Adjustments’, an art book developed from two solo exhibitions titled ‘The sum and its parts’ and ‘A wall is just a wall’ back in 2017. “Kapwani Kiwaga produces works across installation, performance and video that connect her training in anthropology, comparative religion and documentary film with her interests in history, memory and mythology.”

Kiwanga’s work is now digitized and lives in the VCR database thanks to Joana Joachim’s work for Blackity (a curatorial exhibition which highlights the work of Black Canadian artists from Artexte’s collection, dating back to the 1970s until now).
Don’t know how to access our database? Come visit us at the VCR and we’ll show you!

Henni, Samia; Kiwanga, Kapwani; Köchling, Carolin; Michel, Bill; Umolu, Yesomi; Verna, Gaëtane. Structural Adjustments : Kapwani Kiwanga. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2018.
P.6-7 12-13, 40-41, 48-53.

05/04/2023

👏👏👏👏👏👏Congratulations to VCR’s curator-in-residence: Santiago Tavera and his collaborator Laura Acosta - who are longlisted for the Sobey Art Award!

This Colombian-Canadian artistic duo are both MFA graduates from Concordia. Their work combines Tavera’s investigation of video practices and virtual and interactive environments in relation to the body, with Acosta’s exploration of identity through performance and textiles.
Together, they create immersive experiences and expanded performances presenting narratives of displacement and experiences of the Other.
Congratulations Santiago and Laura for this prestigious award!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏

04/20/2023

Hey everyone! We’re happy to announce VCR’s new curators-in-residence: Juan Ospina + Santiago Tavera!

Juan Ospino is a Colombian-born writer and filmmaker and Film curator-in-residence. He recently graduated with a BFA in Film Studies and has focused his interests on films and representation of immigrants and diasporic communities.

Santiago Tavero is a Colombian-Canadian artist, researcher, graduate of the MFA Intermedia program and Image curator-in-residence. Tavera’s intermedia practice revolves around constructing immersive and interactive projects that expand the body and perception through digital media, to evoke virtual simulations of migrant and q***r narratives of dislocation.

The two residents will curate a series of films and images created by Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. This residency program aims to diversify the collection and support more inclusive pedagogy.

-in-residence

02/26/2023

For all analog film lovers, the Archive/Counter-Archive student researchers will present a 16mm film print of 𝙎𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙚 this Tuesday, February 28th. Come join us for this very special screening! This event is organized by Archive/Counter-archive and supported by the VCR film collection.

Date: 02/28/2023
Location: Mini Cinema (EV. 3.703), Concordia University.

*The event is free*
*seats are limited
First come, first serve*

🎞️

𝙎𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙜𝙜𝙡𝙚
directed by Dionne Brand and Ginny Stikeman
1991
49 min
16mm
SISTERS IN THE STRUGGLE explores the diversity, vision and impetus of the contemporary Black women's movement in Canada. The women in this film are active in community work, electoral politics, and labour and feminist organizing. They contribute analysis and personal testimonies on Canada's legacy of racism and sexism.

02/22/2023

Movie Night alert: Join us for the viewing of 𝙄 𝘼𝙢 𝙎𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙗𝙤𝙙𝙮 𝙗𝙮 𝙈𝙖𝙙𝙚𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚 𝘼𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙤𝙣 and 𝘼𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙫𝙞𝙚𝙬𝙨 tomorrow, February 23rd. This screening is organized by Archive/Counterarchive and supported by the VCR film collection.

🎞️

𝗜 𝗔𝗺 𝗦𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗼𝗱𝘆
by Madeline Anderson
1970
30min
"In 1969, 400 poorly paid black women working in a hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, went on strike to demand union recognition and a wage increase, only to find themselves confronting the National Guard and the state government." (IMDb.com)

𝗔𝘁𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀
Portable Channel
1971
8min
Portable Channel, a community documentary group in Rochester, New York, interviewed Sinclair Scott, a member of the negotiating team that went into Attica when the prisoners' rebelled at the federal prison in September 1971. This is only an excerpt of the interview.

02/07/2023

Join us at the VCR for a screening of Losing ground (1982) in celebration of Black History Month.

**Free event and seats are limited.**
**Please, find tickets in the bio**

Losing Ground is a semiautobiographica film written and directed by Kathleen Collins. It is one of the first feature-length drama directed by an African American woman.

Sara Rogers (Seret Scott), a black professor of philosophy, is embarking on an intellectual quest to understand “ecstasy” just as her painter husband, Victor (Bill Gunn), sets off on a more earthy exploration of joy. Over the course of a summer idyll in upstate New York, the two each experience profound emotional and romantic awakenings.

01/17/2023

Stan Douglas

Pages scanned from Television Spots - a publication about Stan Douglas’s series of very short films (ranging from 10 to 37 seconds).
These pages were scanned for Joana Joachim’s curatorial exhibition called Blackity - which delves into contemporary Black Canadian art (between 1970s - 2010s) from the Artexte archive. For more information about the exhibition, see link:
https://artexte.ca/en/exhibition/blackity/

01/09/2023

Welcome back! Today is the first day of classes and we are thrilled to start the Winter Semester! Come visit us at EV. 703 to check our collections.

Untitled In The Metro is a 16mm student film shot in 1977 in Montreal. Come and watch our student film collection!

🎬
Directed by Gerard Laniel
preserved by VCR
restored by Alyosha Nowlin and Brian Virostek