Deep Water features works by Yen-Chao Lin (Montreal), Fraser McCallum (Toronto), Erin Siddall (Vancouver), Miguel Angel Ríos (New York/Oaxaca), Julie René de Cotret and JuJe Collective (Guelph), and Virginia Lee Montgomery (New York/Houston). Produced over the span of the last decade, these short videos and film works make use of natural elements—water, air, fire, minerals, etc.—to circle around issues such as the exploitation of environmental resources, colonial tendencies encroaching on sacred spaces and rituals, pilgrimages to locales that bear remnant traces of activism and protest, the fraught period that we call modernity, and metaphysical ways of summoning hope for the future. Blending documentary, experimental film, performance documentation, archival research, site visits, and semi-fantastic folk retellings, the works included in Deep Water are linked by a common surreal or dreamlike atmosphere, perhaps suggesting a permeability between the exterior world and psychic topographies.
Deep Water is organized by Laura Demers, and is presented as part of the plumbraiser, a fundraiser for the plumb
Many thanks to the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) for sponsoring this virtual screening.
Shot on location in the traditional Amis territory, The Spirit Keepers of Makuta’ay travels through villages on the east coast of Taiwan, where nature, colonization and population migration merge to create a unique spiritual landscape. The hand processed super 8 unravels mixed faith expressions from Daoist ritual possession to Presbyterian funeral, from personal prayers to collective resistance, all the while attempting to trace the memories of past Amis sorcerers.
Yen-Chao Lin 林延昭 is a Taipei-born Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist. A self-described postmodern archivist and natural history enthusiast, her work explores divination arts, occult sciences, oral history, religion, power and social permaculture through means of intuitive play, craft techniques, collaboration, scavenging and collecting. Her current research is focused on dowsing, psychic mapping and resource extraction. Yen-Chao has been invited to give public presentations at Artexte (Montreal), Concordia University (Montreal), GAX Asian Indigenous Relations in Contemporary Art (Montreal), PHI Foundation (Montreal), among others. Her works have been shown at Art Metropole (Toronto), Berlinale (Berlin), Edinburgh International Film Festival (Edinburgh), OBORO (Montreal), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art (Montreal), among others. She has attended residencies at Adélard (Frelighsburg), Cepo’ Art Center (Hualien), and Banff Centre for The Arts (Banff). Yen-Chao currently serves on the Board of articule (Montreal), her most recent installation The Eroding Garden is featured at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal until April 2021.
- Year2019
- Runtime10:57
- CountryCanada, Taiwan
- DirectorYen-Chao Lin
- ScreenwriterRara Dongi
- Co-ProducerOliver Lewis
- Sound DesignOliver Lewis
Deep Water features works by Yen-Chao Lin (Montreal), Fraser McCallum (Toronto), Erin Siddall (Vancouver), Miguel Angel Ríos (New York/Oaxaca), Julie René de Cotret and JuJe Collective (Guelph), and Virginia Lee Montgomery (New York/Houston). Produced over the span of the last decade, these short videos and film works make use of natural elements—water, air, fire, minerals, etc.—to circle around issues such as the exploitation of environmental resources, colonial tendencies encroaching on sacred spaces and rituals, pilgrimages to locales that bear remnant traces of activism and protest, the fraught period that we call modernity, and metaphysical ways of summoning hope for the future. Blending documentary, experimental film, performance documentation, archival research, site visits, and semi-fantastic folk retellings, the works included in Deep Water are linked by a common surreal or dreamlike atmosphere, perhaps suggesting a permeability between the exterior world and psychic topographies.
Deep Water is organized by Laura Demers, and is presented as part of the plumbraiser, a fundraiser for the plumb
Many thanks to the Toronto Palestine Film Festival (TPFF) for sponsoring this virtual screening.
Shot on location in the traditional Amis territory, The Spirit Keepers of Makuta’ay travels through villages on the east coast of Taiwan, where nature, colonization and population migration merge to create a unique spiritual landscape. The hand processed super 8 unravels mixed faith expressions from Daoist ritual possession to Presbyterian funeral, from personal prayers to collective resistance, all the while attempting to trace the memories of past Amis sorcerers.
Yen-Chao Lin 林延昭 is a Taipei-born Montreal-based multidisciplinary artist. A self-described postmodern archivist and natural history enthusiast, her work explores divination arts, occult sciences, oral history, religion, power and social permaculture through means of intuitive play, craft techniques, collaboration, scavenging and collecting. Her current research is focused on dowsing, psychic mapping and resource extraction. Yen-Chao has been invited to give public presentations at Artexte (Montreal), Concordia University (Montreal), GAX Asian Indigenous Relations in Contemporary Art (Montreal), PHI Foundation (Montreal), among others. Her works have been shown at Art Metropole (Toronto), Berlinale (Berlin), Edinburgh International Film Festival (Edinburgh), OBORO (Montreal), SAVVY Contemporary (Berlin), SBC Gallery of Contemporary Art (Montreal), among others. She has attended residencies at Adélard (Frelighsburg), Cepo’ Art Center (Hualien), and Banff Centre for The Arts (Banff). Yen-Chao currently serves on the Board of articule (Montreal), her most recent installation The Eroding Garden is featured at Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal until April 2021.
- Year2019
- Runtime10:57
- CountryCanada, Taiwan
- DirectorYen-Chao Lin
- ScreenwriterRara Dongi
- Co-ProducerOliver Lewis
- Sound DesignOliver Lewis