b.h. Yael: Family States - Book launch, screening and celebration with b.h. Yael and special guests

B. H. YAEL: FAMILY STATES

BOOK LAUNCH & CONVERSATION WITH B. H. YAEL AND SPECIAL GUESTS

LIVE-STREAM EVENT: Sunday April 25, 1 pm (EST)
TICKETS: By registration only through Eventbrite
COST: Free or suggested donation of $10
INFO: cinemapolitica.org/toronto
SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook event

b.h. Yael: Family States, which editor Mike Hoolboom calls a "community place," embodies the creative and collaborative spirit of b.h. Yael's life-work, and as such this event will feature conversations with Richard Fung, Dalia Kandiyoti, and Robert Massoud, three of the book's contributors. This eclectic publication is sponsored by the ConverSalon collective.

A reception (digital mingling encouraged!) will follow the event and will be facilitated by Ashok Mathur, Dean of Graduate Studies, OCAD University.

The launch will also feature clips from FRESH BLOOD (1996), DEIR YASSIN REMEMBERED (2006) and TRADING THE FUTURE (2008). This selection of short films examines questions of Arab Jewishness, Israeli denial of the Palestinian Nakbah (disaster), as well as the intersections of planetary and religious narratives.

The complete version of the films will be made available for free streaming on Cinema Politica On Demand for a week prior to the event and 48 hours after, and subsequently, a curated selection of Yael's films will live on the streaming platform.

This event is co-presented with ConverSalon, Another Story Bookshop, and OCAD University, Faculty of Art and the Office of Research and Innovation.

▪You will receive a private link to view b.h. Yael's films (available in Canada only) on Monday April 19, and a link to the video conference on the day of the event.

▪By making a Solidarity Contribution or a Donation, you will receive a pdf of Family States via email (see ticket options in Eventbrite registration).

▪Live captioning will be provided.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

b.h. Yael is a Toronto based filmmaker, video and installation artist. She is Professor of Integrated Media at OCAD University and past Assistant Dean and past Chair of Integrated Media in the Faculty of Art. Yael’s past film and video work has dealt with issues of identity, authority and family structures, while at the same time addressing the fragmentary nature of memory and belonging. Her work most often involves non-linear and hybrid forms, including dramatized and fictional elements combined with first person narration, autobiographical and documentary perspectives.

Michael Hoolboom is a filmmaker and writer living in Toronto.

Richard Fung is a writer and video artist born in Trinidad and based in Toronto. He is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University.

Dalia Kandiyoti is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York and the author of two books and articles on Sephardic, Latinx, and other writing about migrations, diasporas, and the many ways in which people lose and make worlds. Dalia's current work includes an oral history project and an edited volume about Sephardi Jews and the citizenship laws in Spain and Portugal, both with Dr. Rina Benmayor.

Robert Massoud is Palestinian-Canadian. In 2004, he founded Zatoun, Fair Trade olive oil from Palestine to serve as a symbol of light, hope and peace. The oil is available in North America mostly through faith communities, the grassroots and fair trade network. Robert cofounded a worldwide project called "Trees for Life Palestine" which plants 10,000s of olive trees every year in Palestine. Zatoun is a major supporter of "Project Hope" providing "art as therapy" to help heal many thousands of children living in refugee camps in Palestine. Since 2004, Zatoun has contributed over $550,000 to these two projects.

ABOUT THE FILMS

FRESH BLOOD, A CONSIDERATION OF BELONGING is a hybrid documentary or video essay which includes questions around Arab Jewishness, negotiating Palestine, gender, belly-dancing and memory. This video essay, formed by personal narrative and including a return to Israel/Palestine, engages issues of: Jewish racialized identity, Arab/Jewish dichotomies and the way these come together in Iraqi Jewish culture, and the personal implications of the politics of Palestine and the Jewish holocaust.

DEIR YASSIN REMEMBERED considers the repercussions of a largely forgotten massacre of almost 100 Palestinians in 1948. The massacre at Deir Yassin was pivotal to Palestinian dispossession. Though Deir Yassin has been partially acknowledged by Israelis, many other massacres of the time have not. The video not only gives an account of what happened at Deir Yassin, but also argues for the need for acknowledgement and commemoration.

TRADING THE FUTURE is a video essay that questions the inevitability of apocalypse and its repercussions on environmental urgencies. Starting with a personal memory, the fear of the rapture, the video addresses the Christian narrative for the end of times, and draws connections to secular apocalypticism and our ready acceptance of a cataclysmic end. The video also challenges the philosophical and practical underpinnings of the symbolic of death, the desirability of the growth of the market place, and the politics of apocalypse, while proposing possible alternatives in the idea of natality, the productivity of biodiversity and the agency of everyday activism.

ABOUT THE BOOK

B. H. YAEL: FAMILY STATES

Mike Hoolboom (Ed.), 2021

This 140-page book brings together a collection of writings about the essential work of Canadian media artist b.h. Yael addressing issues of power and belonging, Palestine and remembering, gender roles and activism. The ideas and locations featured in Yael's films and videos reverberate through these responsive texts by fellow artists, filmmakers, writers, teachers, and activists, providing new and startling perspectives. The book also includes an interview conducted by editor Mike Hoolboom and pictures galore.

Writers include: Cameron Bailey, Yann Beauvais, Niko Block, Dennis Day, Brian Dedora, Clint Enns, Richard Fung, Rebecca Garrett, Amy Gottlieb, John Greyson, Nadia Habib, Johanna Householder, Dalia Kandiyoti, Ali Kazimi, Caroline Seck Langill, Deirdre Logue, Robert Massoud, Judy Rebick, Steve Reinke, Deborah Root, Kerri Sakamoto, Lia Tarachansky.

Published by ConverSalon. Funded by the Ontario Arts Council.

Mike Hoolboom's book is NOW available at Another Story Bookshop!

$15 (curbside pick-up or shipping possible)

Find b.h. Yael: Family States under New Books We Love!

ABOUT THE ARTISTS/WRITERS

CAMERON BAILEY

Cameron Bailey is the Co-Head and Artistic Director of TIFF and the Toronto International Film Festival. Born in London, Bailey grew up in England and Barbados before migrating to Canada. Before joining TIFF full-time, he worked for 20 years as both film programmer and film critic, contributing to Toronto's NOW Magazine, CBC Radio One, TVOntario and CTV’s Canada AM. Bailey has served on film festival juries in Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe and the Americas. He has taught film curation at the University of Toronto, and holds an honorary Doctor of Laws from Western University.

YANN BEAUVAIS

yann beauvais is a filmmaker, critic, independent curator, and co-founder of Light Cone, a distributor of experimental film… also still running is B3 in Recife with Edson Barrus (2011)… yann directed Miles McKane and Scratch. yann lives and works in Recife and teaches in Paris at the national art school: ENSAPC; and he has edited a few books, the latest one l'émulsion fantatisque le cinéma selon Cécile Fontaine, Ed: Light Cone Paris (2021).

NIKO BLOCK

Niko Block is a PhD candidate in political science at York University. His writing has appeared in Jacobin, The Guardian, New Internationalist and Canadian Dimension.

DENNIS DAY

Dennis Day is a visual artist and editor, currently carrying out repetitive and circular Covid rituals in Toronto's east end. Originally from Newfoundland, his own video works have been presented in numerous gallery and museum exhibitions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art and the National Gallery of Canada. He has taught editing and post-production at Concordia University, York University and Humber College Lakeshore. Over the last several years Dennis has been focusing much of his energy on photography and photo-digital constructions. His work is represented in Toronto by Paul Petro Contemporary Art.

BRIAN DEDORA

Brian Dedora’s novel/memoir A SLICE OF VOICE AT THE EDGE OF HEARING was a finalist for both the Relit Award and the George Ryga Prize followed by another “audacious experiment in narrative” A FEW SHARP STICKS, followed by LOT 351, and a book of his visual work from the 70’s and 80’s entitled EYE WHERE, all books through the Mercury Press and Teksteditions. Editorial Visor in Madrid and BookThug in Toronto published his work on the Spanish poet and playwright, Federico Garcia Lorca, titled LORCATION in a bilingual edition in 2015 along with TWO AT HIGH NOON published by Vancouver’s Nomados Literary Press.  BORDER BLUR and DIAGRAMS FOR A VAUDEVILLE OF POEMS published by NoiR:Z, Toronto, 2019.  2020 saw the publication of PLAGUE SPOT and recently RECYCLED from NOIR:Z. Dedora lives and writes in Toronto where he hones his skills in film photography with his vintage cameras.

CLINT ENNS

Clint Enns is a writer and visual artist living in Montreal, Quebec.

RICHARD FUNG

Richard Fung is a writer and video artist born in Trinidad and based in Toronto. He is Professor Emeritus in the Faculty of Art at OCAD University.  http://www.richardfung.ca/ 

REBECCA GARRETT

Rebecca Garrett is a Toronto based artist whose award winning experimental videos, installations, and community video projects have been exhibited at numerous venues in Canada and abroad. Garrett has worked collaboratively and/or collectively with many groups and individuals in Canada, the USA, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, and has taught at York University, the University of Toronto, and the Ontario College of Art and Design. Her work expresses a long commitment to naming economic, colonial and social injustices, and building relations of exchange and reciprocity.

AMY GOTTLIEB

Amy Gottlieb is a queer, socialist-feminist, anti-racist activist. She was a founding member of the Jewish Women’s Committee to End the Occupation. She is a retired high school photography teacher. Her video and photo-based art explores the intersections of personal and historical memories, some of which can be found at http://amygottlieb.ca/

 JOHN GREYSON

John Greyson is video/film artist and pioneer of the new queer cinema. Since 1984, his many features, shorts and transmedia works have explored such queer activist issues as police violence, prison, AIDS activism, solidarity, homo-nationalism and apartheid (both South African and Israeli). These include International Dawn Chorus Day (2021), Mercurial (2018), Gazonto (2016), Murder in Passing (2013), Fig Trees (2009), Lilies (1996), Zero Patience (1993), The Making of Monsters (1991) and Urinal (1989). His videos/films are the subject of the critical anthology The Perils of Pedagogy: The Works of John Greyson (Longfellow/McKenzie/Waugh, 2013). He teaches in York University's Cinema & Media Arts department, was a member of the Blah Blah Blah and Olive Project media collectives, co-edited Queer Looks: Perspectives on Lesbian & Gay Film & Video (1993), co-produced the cable series Toronto Living with AIDS (1991) and is currently producing the AIDS activist media project Viral Interventions (2021-24)

NADIA HABIB

Nadia Habib is a Sessional Assistant Professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies at York University. As a cultural theorist, her interdisciplinary research focuses on a complex examination of everyday life in the cultural and social production of the Egyptian nation in its postcolonial iteration.

She also continues to be involved in creative projects and wrote the poem, “The Sound of Peace,” which informs the narration for A Hot Sand Filled Wind, the third installment of b.h. Yael’s film, Palestine Trilogy: Documentations in History, Land and Hope. 

JOHANNA HOUSEHOLDER

Johanna Householder is interested in how ideas move through bodies. Shaped by feminism and other cultural forces, she works primarily in performance art, video, audio, film and choreography which she uses as a perfect excuse for collaboration.

MIKE HOOLBOOM

Michael Hoolboom is a filmmaker and writer living in Toronto. (And much too humble)

http://mikehoolboom.com/ 

DALIA KANDIYOTI

Dalia Kandiyoti is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York and the author of two books and articles on Sephardic, Latinx, and other writing about migrations, diasporas, and the many ways in which people lose and make worlds. Dalia's current work includes an oral history project and an edited volume about Sephardi Jews and the citizenship laws in Spain and Portugal, both with Dr. Rina Benmayor.

ALI KAZIMI

Ali Kazimi is a filmmaker, author and media artist whose work deals with race, social justice migration, history and memory. He is the recipient of the 2019 Governor General’s Award for Visual and Media Arts. And the same year he received a Doctor of Letters, honoris causa from the University of British Columbia. His critically acclaimed documentaries include Narmada: A Valley Rises (’94), Shooting Indians: A Journey with Jeffrey Thomas (’97), Documenting Dissent (’01), Continuous Journey (’04), Runaway Grooms (’06), Rex versus Singh (’09) and Random Acts of Legacy (’16).

CAROLINE SECK LANGILL

Caroline Seck Langill is a writer and curator whose academic scholarship and curatorial work looks at the intersections between art and science, as well as the related fields of new media art history, criticism and preservation. Her interests in non-canonical art histories, gender studies and Indigenous epistemologies have led her to writing and exhibition-making that could be considered post-disciplinary. With Dr. Lizzie Muller, she has been looking at questions of liveliness in art and artifacts since 2010. This ongoing research resulted in the exhibition Lively Objects: Enchantment and Disruption (2015) for the International Symposium on Electronic Art, and a forthcoming book from Routledge, Curating Lively Objects: Exhibitions beyond disciplines. Dr Langill is a Full Professor at OCAD University, where she holds the position of Vice-President, Academic and Provost.

DEIRDRE LOGUE  

Deirdre Logue focuses on the self as subject, using 'performance for the camera' as her primary mode of production, with compelling self-portraits that investigate what it means to be a queer body in the age of anxiety. She has subsequently produced upwards of 60 short films and videos and celebrated video art installations. Logue has contributed over 25 years to working with artist-run organizations dedicated to media arts exhibition and distribution. She was a founding member of Media City, the Executive Director of the Images Festival, Executive Director of the CFMDC, founding member of the Media Arts Network of Ontario (MANO) and is currently the Development Director at Vtape.

ROBERT MASSOUD

Robert Massoud is Palestinian-Canadian. In 2004, he founded Zatoun, Fair Trade olive oil from Palestine to serve as a symbol of light, hope and peace. The oil is available in North America mostly through faith communities, the grassroots and fair trade network. Robert cofounded a worldwide project called "Trees for Life Palestine" which plants 10,000s of olive trees every year in Palestine. Zatoun is a major supporter of "Project Hope" providing "art as therapy" to help heal many thousands of children living in refugee camps in Palestine. Since 2004, Zatoun has contributed over $550,000 to these two projects. 

JUDY REBICK

Judy Rebick is one of Canada’s best-known feminists.  While retired, she continues to work for change as a speaker and a coach.  She is the writer of 6 books, including Ten Thousand Roses, the Making of a Feminist Revolution and her latest a memoir, Heroes in My Head.  Judy was the first CAW Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson.  She hosted two national TV shows on CBC in the 1990’s and is also the founding publisher of rabble.ca, Canada’s most active independent online news and discussion site.  She is the former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women and was a spokesperson for the pro-choice campaign that won legal abortion in Canada in the 1980’s. 

STEVE REINKE

Steve Reinke is an artist and writer best known for his monologue-based video essays. Born in 1963 in the Ottawa Valley, he now lives in Chicago, teaching at Northwestern. He has authored and co-edited several books, including "The Shimmering Beast," "Everybody Loves Nothing," "Blast Counterblast" (co-edited with Anthony Elms) and "The Sharpest Point: Animation at the End of Cinema" (co-edited with Chris Gehman). His work is represented by Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi in Berlin. www.myrectumisnotagrave.com

DEBORAH ROOT

Deborah Root is a cultural critic and writer. Her catalogue work incudes substantive essays on Laureana Toledo, Sarindar Dhaliwal, Jorge Lozano, and Ximena Cuevas, and her arts writing has appeared in Art Papers, Prefix Photo, Public, C Magazine, and the Contact photography and Bienale de Sao Paulo catalogues. She is the author of Cannibal Culture: Art, Appropriation and the Commodification of Difference, and has taught visual culture at the Ontario College of Art and Design, the University of Guelph, and Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. 

KERRI SAKAMOTO

Kerri Sakamoto is a Toronto-based author of three novels: The Electrical Field, One Hundred Million Hearts and Floating City. She occasionally writes screenplays and essays on art.

LIA TARACHANSKY

Lia Tarachansky is an Israeli-Canadian journalist and filmmaker born in the former Soviet Union. She has made several short, experimental, and feature films and worked as a Middle East correspondent, filing dozens of video reports and directing feature-length investigative documentaries for BBC World, The Guardian, TeleSUR, and Naretiv Productions. Some of her films won awards and toured globally. She spends her days filming life on her smartphone, designing lesson plans, and reading barely-comprehensible books for her PhD in Media Studies. For more info, check out www.liatarachansky.com and www.naretivproductions.com  

ABOUT CINEMA POLITICA

With nearly 100 locations in Canada and across the globe, Cinema Politica is the largest campus and community based screening network in the world. Our distribution and exhibition efforts are squarely concerned with impact, activation and engagement, and social change on a local and global scale. As such, we represent and circulate politically powerful, artistically unique and uncompromising documentary films across a diverse and wide spectrum of platforms and venues.

For more info on Cinema Politica and to check out our alternative exhibition network visit our website.

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