Moving Image
Scared Sacred: George Elliott Clarke and
the Afro-Métis Constitution (crowdfunding trailer)
Documentary (currently in production)
A film by Leslie Schachter, David Richler, Peter Harris and Jessica Aldred
Sound Editor - Owen Lyons
Coined by Sugar Plum Croxen, "Afro-Métis" is a term that describes the genetic and cultural mixing between Canadian Blacks (particularly from Nova Scotia) and Indigenous peoples that has occurred frequently, beginning over two hundred years ago. The term was created to assert and celebrate this reality.
George Elliott Clarke, Shelley Hamilton, Plums Croxen, Russ Kelley and Chris White are delving into their Black, Native and Nova Scotian roots to create songs and poems that address and celebrate this largely unacknowledged aspect of Canadian history and culture. They have performed and recorded this material in Halifax and Toronto, and will release an album entitled “The Afrometis Constitution” in Fall, 2018. They are also creating a touring show to present at festivals and concert halls across Canada and beyond.
Their goal? To use powerful artistic forms to tell the untold story of the struggles, determination, accomplishments and contributions of a segment of the population that has endured and remained strong and productive for hundreds of years despite immense ongoing adversity. This is a story that current and future generations need to hear and feel in order for a more equitable and enlightened society to be possible.
Currently in post-production, Scared Sacred documents the making of the album and events surrounding the Afro-Métis project.
The Last Keeper
Password: greece
Documentary Short
Director / Editor / Sound - Owen Lyons
Writers - Owen Lyons & Visnja Jovanovic
Cinematography - Cressida Kocienski
The Last Keeper is a documentary short shot in Zejtinlik – a WWI Allied Military Cemetery in Thessaloniki, Greece. Soldiers who died on the Macedonian front between 1915 and 1918 are interred there – their graves organized by nation and rank – English, Serbian, Russian, Italian and French.
The keeper of the Serbian section, Djordje (George) Mihailović, is the third and last of a line of cemetery wardens. Born in the cemetery, his life’s work has been set out for him since his birth. Though Djordje has only travelled to Serbia a handful of times, Serbs travel to visit him every day, and from sunrise to sunset he works in the grounds – guiding visiting groups and embodying the history of the place itself. Now in his 90th year, Djordje still works in the cemetery daily.
The Last Keeper introduces the extraterritorial enclave of the military cemetery, created around the loss of soldiers in three conflicts, through Djordje’s narration, as well as his meditations on the importance of the site to the history of his idealized homeland. It poses questions about the complex nature of nationalism, history, and collective memory, through the example of Djordje's own identification with a country that he has visited only a few times, and yet, that he has become a representative of. It portrays a space that resonates with the conflicts of the present moment and the stark rise of nationalist sentiment today, yet it also stands outside of time, making these narratives feel unfamiliar and distant.
Raphaëlle de Groot | The Wait - Experimenting Expectation
Raphaëlle de Groot | The Wait - Experimenting Expectation
Durational performance with audience participation, collection of materials, found objects and accessories; video documentation
Performed at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, June 24-25, 2015
Video and Sound - Owen Lyons
Montreal artist Raphaëlle de Groot’s work evolves from heterogeneous, contextual research, situations of encounter, and responses to experience. In this new installation, de Groot staged a performance at the opening reception in addition to her performances in the two days following the reception. Here, the artist set up various interactive encounters with audience members. Within her engagements with other bodies, de Groot was able to collectively produce signs, marks, and accounts through note-taking, during a process of undertaking various physical and situational constraints—obstructed vision, restrictive wear, covering up the face. The artist always strives to work outside the purview of vision, in “un-mastery,” such as to instill a state of dispossession, of loss: loss of one’s bearings, loss of control, loss of self-image, so that there is an ultimate reorganization of existing materials, and one can observe traces of things that share the quality of usually being overlooked.
A Common Assembly
DAAR: Decoloning Architecture Art Residency, 2014
Sandi Hilal, Alessandro Petti, Eyal Weizman, Nicola Perugini
DOP and Editor - Cressida Kocienski
Sound - Owen Lyons
Common Assembly: Deterritorializing the Palestinian Parliament is a long-term project to think through and conceive spaces for political participation, decision and action for all Palestinians.
A TALE
Written and Directed by Katrin Thomas, 2014
Produced by Glen Sheppard - Landwehr Canal
Director of Photography - Mark Pennock
Camera Operator - Owen Lyons
A TALE is a 14-minute experimental documentary film by producer Glen Sheppard and conceived and narrated by noted photographer Katrin Thomas. A TALE consists of a story being told to a young audience in a cosy Berlin apartment in front of a wood fire. The story happened to the narrator 20 years ago when she was living and studying in Los Angeles. The details are increasingly surreal and accumulate into something truly perilous.
A TALE is about observations, and so we observe the audience observing the storyteller, both the film’s audience and the narrator’s audience during the shoot listening to the story, without viewing the storyteller.