I had the pleasure of attending the Images Festival in Toronto, Canada a couple of weeks ago. Now in its twentieth year, the festival was one of the first dedicated to supporting the work of independent filmmakers. Many Canadian “niche” film festivals are an off-shoot of the Images Fest. It began as a platform of diversity helping independent filmmakers reach new communities and new audiences. Nowadays, with a film festival representing practically every community in Canada, the only premise of the Images Festival is to create or work with “moving image.” So, independent artists, radio producers, video and filmmakers, performance artists, sound and light artists; anyone that supports work with image, light and sound is in.

To give you a feel, the opening night film was Babette Mangolte’s Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic. Throughout the festival, the event titles ranged from, “Looking to Telling: Shark Guts, Broken Ankles and Ghosts of the Arctic” to “Spaces Continuously Dissolve and Collapse Only to Separate Again.”

I was invited to speak at the series, MOMENTUM: Critical Discourse on Contemporary Image Culture. The framework I was given was: How contemporary art is created, what does it communicate and how is it exhibited and distributed in contemporary society?  Sounds like a scary mouth full that would put anyone to sleep, huh? In reality, it was a nice chat about the inspirational role art has played in our lives.

I sat on the panel with Sook- Yin Lee, a Toronto-based musician, actor, fillmmaker and TV and radio broadcaster. You may have seen her play the pre-orgasmic sex therapist in John Cameron Mitchell’s new film Shortbus. Our moderator, the amazing Tori Allen (produces CBC’s Global Village) decided that didactic panels where “artists” present in top/down styles was not only contradictory to the festival, but boring.

Sook-Yin and I were not allowed to e-mail each other, research each other or meet until the day of our talk. That day Tori would introduce us in front of the audience by showing and telling to each other a piece of a project that we worked on, a favorite sound, a photo that depicts a story about ourselves and a piece of audio or moving image that we find amazing. After each segment we would ask each other questions and invite the audience to ask us questions.

It was by far one of the best panel and festival experiences I have had. In telling stories about pieces that I love and work around, I was brought back to the core of my work and was reminded why I chose to work in the field that I work in. This is a rare opportunity in the world of “indie-everything,” where lately all gatherings turn into dry panels and conferences or “networking” events.

Critics of the Images Festival say that by showcasing multi-genre moving image works and artists, the festival has lost its identity and core constituency. It is suffering from an identity crisis of sorts. In effect, it is still strange for me to explain exactly what the themes of the talk were or what audience would be ideal for the festival. But as a participant and a festival goer, I felt that not being able to comfortably place the Images Festival in a category is its greatest strength and something every artist, exhibiter, “outreacher,” and thinker should ponder on.

True art is only defined by three parameters: 1. its universality and borderlessness, 2. its undefinable nature and the fact that it has to be seen, heard and lived and can never be fully explained 3. A capacity to contest the status quo by existing. I.e., great art is political by just being art.

The Images Festival brings these notions back to the table and opens the dialogue to this nuanced area. Coming from a person that works in the seemingly “nichey” social-issue film and radio world, it was a breath of fresh air to lose the
labels, the niches and the categories to talk about communication, feeling and inspiration.

I personally want to congratulate everyone that collaborated in putting this festival together for bringing artistic expression through moving image back to its independent core. This is cutting-edge indeed!