Whispers in the Air
all roses sleep (inviolate light)
Alana Bartol , Bryce KrynskiAn ultraviolet olfactory video, shot from a bee’s point of view as it flies through a prairie landscape. Audiences utilize a scratch and sniff card while following along as a solitary bee searches and dreams of a rose. This film is meant to conjure questions about our shared future.
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Images Festival is committed to providing an accessible festival and continues to work to reduce barriers to participation at our events. This year, we are implementing a COVID-19 policy to reduce the risk of COVID-19 transmission for all, and to prioritize the participation of people who are disability-identified, immunocompromised, or part of an otherwise vulnerable group.
The following guidelines will be in place: Self-Assessment: We ask that staff and participants screen themselves for COVID-19 before visiting the exhibition.
According to the Smithsonian, the practice of testing the safety of a coal mine for human laborers by deploying a canary first began in Britain in 1911 and was quickly adopted in North America thereafter. For 75 years, canaries were brought to coal mines in cages and urged into the shafts. There they would live, keeping those working underground company with their song. But the birds were not there for companionship. They were deployed as detectors of carbon monoxide and other airborne toxins. When the whistling stopped, those working the mine knew the birds had died. Silence was their alarm.
Since then, a “canary in the coal mine” has become shorthand to describe early warning signs of danger. It is increasingly used when speaking about the endangerment of keystone species in response to dwindling habitats and protections. With the loss of a keystone species, an entire ecosystem radically changes, as no other species can fill the gap it has left.
This program presents the work of four filmmakers who foreground the lives of keystone species during the current mass extinction event. If canaries were silent alarms, these films act as whispers in the air. all roses sleep (inviolate light), lii bufloo aen loo kishkishiw (Buffalo Wolf Memory) and The Backpack of Wings: Modern Mythology consider our shared futures alongside our more-than-human kin.
all roses sleep (inviolate light) is an olfactory video. Please arrive early to the cinema in order to receive your scratch and sniff card. Pre-registration is recommended. See Imagesfestival.com for details.
Dianne Ouellette (she/her) is a Metis filmmaker, multimedia artist, curator, and educator. She has focused her lens on family, history, and identity for almost 30 years. Multimodal storytelling fulfills her media passion and continuing to encourage others by connecting people with stories is valuable to her artistic goals.
Alana Bartol and Bryce Krynski (Mohkínstsis/Calgary) are moving image and interdisciplinary artists. Their independent and collaborative works examine resource extraction, settler-colonial agricultural systems, and the loss of biodiversity. They often employ participatory, sensory experiences as a way to de-centre human perception. This is their first collaborative film.
Hyeseon Jeong and Seongmin Yuk are an artist duo based in Cologne. They focus on the examination of new narratives through their audiovisual works. Their narratives address new
eco-social structures by speculating on a hyper-connected environment where humans, nonhumans, and machines create an alternative planetary living.