Documenting Engagement

What is the Documenting Engagement Institute?

For three weeks in the winter of 2003/04, nine mid-career Canadian artists will work with a group of senior artists and media producers as part of Documenting Engagement: A Community Artists Media Institute. Together this group will investigate the practice of community-based arts and explore the potential of digital video as a means of documenting the aesthetics of engagement inherent in this art form. After taking part in a series of discussions (some open to the public), workshops, and screenings, participating artists will each produce a short documentary video highlighting an aspect of their practice. These videos will then be screened at a closing night gala presentation and panel discussion at Pacific Cinémathèque. Copies of the productions will also be widely disseminated and screenings will be arranged for the general public, community groups, educational institutions such as high schools, universities and colleges, art and community development conferences, funding agencies, and other groups and decision making bodies.

Public Events Schedule
Please join us for these free public events:

Sunday, January 11 - 1:00pm - 3:00pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
Institute Keynote address: "Art and Imagination in Community Arts"
Join theatre artist and Queen's University instructor Julie Salverson in exploring the 'job' of the artist in community arts practices. Salverson has been thinking, writing and lecturing about the complexities of being an artist who engages with communities for some time and as founder of both Second Look Community Arts in Toronto and Flying Blind Theatre Events, she has been instrumental in the development of popular theatre in Canada.

Sunday, January 11 - 3:30pm - 5:30pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
Institute Keynote address: "Ethics and Engagement: Representation, Documentation and 'Doing the "Right" Thing.'"
Pam Hall, visual and film artist and instructor at Goddard College in Vermont, will discuss her experiences and reflections on the responsibilities artists face, both during the processes of making art with communities and in the complex task of representing those works in film or video. Hall writes, "Somewhere between the opposing notions that "ART CAN'T HURT YOU" and "ART IS AS BENIGN AS TRUTH" lies the ethical terrain we navigate as artists. Whether we work in solitude or in community, from the personal or the political, towards the process or the product, we are surrounded by ethical questions and challenged by the consequences of WHAT we do and HOW we do it."

Monday, January 12 - 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
Screening: selected short videos about community art projects
Discussion: What Makes an Effective Video About Community Art? documentary strategies, constraints, effectiveness and possibilities of the videos. What decisions did the artists make in the videos, whose voices are represented, how do you make a video when all you have is still photography, how do you make one when you have hours and hours of raw footage shot at random... these and other questions will be illustrated and discussed.

Tuesday, January 13 - 4:00pm - 6:00pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
Discussion: Who Uses Video Documentation of Community Art? What kinds of video documentation do educators, funders, and community arts advocates need and how do they use it? Panel participants: Sarah Chilvers, Vancouver Foundation; how one non-arts funding program looks at project documentation: Susan Gordon, Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation; uses of video for advocacy in communities: Rachael Van Fosson, Concordia University; video in educational settings: jil p. weaving, video as documentation for arts funding applications: Doug Durand, video and electronic media as tools for the broad dissemination of information about community engaged artistic practices.

Wednesday, January 14 - 7:00pm - 9:00pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
Roundtable: Community Engaged Theatre With so many exciting community theatre artists visiting Vancouver-- a place with so many resident exciting community theatre artists -- the opportunity to offer a place to get together and let the introductions and discussions happen was irresistible. Whether you are a theatre artist, an artist engaging with community, or an interested member of the public, please join us and take advantage of the opportunity to get to know others who share your interests. (If you have been involved in community engaged theatre please consider preparing a3-5 minute introduction to the work you do and call jil p. weaving at 604-257-8496 to indicate you will be attending.)

Saturday, January 31- 3:00pm - 4:30pm
Roundhouse Community Centre
Discussion: Claude Schryer, Inter-Arts Office Coordinator, Canada Council for the Arts discussion of support for community engaged arts practices.

Saturday, January 31- 7:00pm
Pacific Cinémathèque
Gala Screening: Premiere of the 8 new short videos created by Documenting Engagement
Producing Artists Community theatre, dance, visual and celebration arts will all be represented. Probably the only showing of the suite of videos at which all of the artists will be present and available for questions afterwards! Join us to watch the videos and talk to the artists.