Night School
CANCELLED | Indigenous Futurisms
** THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. WE HOPE TO RESCHEDULE SOON. **
Indigenous Futurisms is an emerging field that orients Indigenous lived experiences and decolonial perspectives into the realms of science fiction. More broadly, Indigenous Futurisms is the re-imagining, visualization and creation of possible futures for Indigenous peoples by Indigenous artists and creators. Indigenous activist and writer Erica Violet Lee explains in her essay Reconciling in the Apocalypse that “in knowing the histories of our relations and of this land, we find the knowledge to recreate all that our worlds would’ve been, if not for the interruption of colonization.”
In this session, Howard Alder will focus on Indigenous Futurist perspectives from North America with a cross section of both film and video based works as well as independent video games. We will watch selected short videos by Indigenous artists and critically discuss the typically white, colonial, frontier focus that classic science fiction and futurist work tend towards.
Howard Adler
Howard Adler holds a bachelor of arts in Indigenous Studies from Trent University, and a master of arts in Canadian Studies from Carleton University. He is the co-founder/director/programmer for the Asinabka Festival, an annual Indigenous film and media arts festival in Ottawa, Canada. Howard’s film, video and art, have been exhibited in gallery settings, broadcast nationally, and shown extensively at film festivals both in Canada and internationally. He often works as a freelancer or on a contract basis in various capacities, including film and video production, as a university instructor, a guest speaker, a workshop instructor, or leading art making classes for youth. Howard's pronouns are he/him, he is Two-Spirit, Polish-Jewish and Anishinaabe, and a member of Lac des Mille Lacs First Nation in North-western Ontario.
About Night School
Night School is SAW Video's free, monthly lecture series designed to provide the basic fundamentals of video, film and media art history, theories and current topics of significance. Night School was initiated as a resistance reaction to the OSAP (Ontario Student Assistance Program) funding cuts in 2018. Night School provides an introduction to an art history theme or topic, within a university/college framework and by a university/college professor but without the financial barriers to participate. Many forms and technological approaches are to be found in the media art landscape and Night School wants to demystify them all. Each Night School lecture will include screenings of select work and or listening exercises depending on the lecture topic at hand.
Everyone is welcome to attend Night School! We encourage SAW Video members, artists, creators, arts/cultural workers, folks looking to experiment in a new discipline, admirers and or advocates for video and media arts to join us. Attendance at every lecture is not necessary but recommended for a well rounded education.