The Vancouver Memory Festival

The Vancouver Memory Festival November 10-19, 2010

Exhibitions

November 10-19, 2010 Roundhouse Community Center

At the heart of the Vancouver Memory Festival was the Photography exhibition which featured three photographers working with different aspects of public and private memory.

Memory and the Valley

by David Campion and Sandra Shields Memory and the Valley explores the ways in which memory persists in the landscape: What does it mean to know (or not to know) that a longhouse once stood where the railway tracks now run? What is the nature of knowledge and remembering, and how is the past visible in our lives today?

Installation view

From the Snowy Mountain: Constructing Memories

by Christopher Grabowski

Christopher Grabowski’s photography explores the way false memories are created and documented, and how those who construct the false memories inhabit them, how these constructions (the elaborate frame, the scene never visited) project a sense of individuality that transcends artifice.

Emigrant and Immigrant

by Goran Basaric

For the past ten years, Goran Basaric has been photographing the memory places of his son, who knows only Canada as his home. For “Emigrant and Immigrant,” Basaric travelled to Belgrade to photograph the memory places from his own childhood.

Belgrade has changed dramatically since Basaric left for Canada in the early 1990s, and these photographs show a new yet familiar city, imposed onto the landscape of Basaric’s memories. What emerges from his photographs of Serbia and Canada are two visual narratives that point to the nature of immigrant lives and childhood memories.

Memory Talks

November 10-13, 2010 Roundhouse Community Center The Ecology of Memory with Faith Moosang and Hal Wake Faith Moosang (First Son: Portraits of C.D. Hoy) was interviewed by Hal Wake, Artistic Director of the Vancouver International Writers Festival, on her process of collecting abandoned photo albums, home movies, slides and other ephemera related to the remembrance of the family.

The Photography Panel

The Photography Panel: Goran Basaric, David Campion, Christopher Grabowski, Stephen Osborne.

On the opening night of the 2010 Memory Festival, Stephen Osborne and the photographers Goran Basaric, David Campion and Christopher Grabowski, discussed many of the themes central to the festival: the nature of preserving memory, and how the camera itself informs this process.

Memory Sentences

November 10-19, 2010 Roundhouse Community Center

The Art of the Sentence Workshop with Stephen Osborne This workshop, attended by 14 writers, was dedicated to writing one strong sentence. Participants learned the art of crafting sentences: how to identify them and how to write them so that they cut straight to the heart of the story or essay.

One-Sentence Memory Contest Over 60 entrants submitted to the One-Sentence Memory Contest, from which a longlist of 27 finalists was picked. The finalists were exhibited at the Roundhouse Community Center and published in a special digital offprint by Geist.

Edward Parker: One-Sentence Memory Contest finalist

Readings & Performances

November 13-14, 2010 Roundhouse Community Center

Big Graphic Stories

by Lee Henderson, Hiromi Goto and Sarah Leavitt. Hosted by Charles Demers.

Each reader’s stories were accompanied by projected images for a storybook-style reading of ingenious fabrications of memory and poignant reminiscences.

Before we get into the event—I would like to hear from you in what way you think that my love affected you by Marcus Youssef Marcus Youssef (playwright, actor, director and writer) performed in a multimedia show about his mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s.

Rewind: Memory on Film

by Thursdays Writing Collective Rewind featured storytelling by Irit Shimrat, Antonette Rea, Joan Morelli and Muriel Marjorie of Thursdays Writing Collective.

Hiromi Goto reading: Big Graphic Stories

Memory Facts Attendance

4th Annual Memory Festival

Featured Artists

Talks and Readings: 450 Exhibitions: 3200

The Vancouver Memory Festival was founded by the Vancouver Memory Collective in 2006 as a freefloating series of public events that focus on public and private memory. At the heart of this endeavour lie questions of remembering, forgetting and the nature of memory itself. This was the largest festival to date.

Photographers: 3 Playwrights: 1 Graphic novelists: 2 Storytellers: 4 Photo album collectors: 1 Videographers: 2 Writers: 30+

The 2010 Memory Festival exposed the work of more than 40 artists to more than 1000 spectators.

The 2010 Memory Festival was brought to you by: Geist Magazine Roundhouse Community Center SFU Writing & Publishing Programme