Groupe Intervention Vidéo (GIV) is an independent artist run center in Montreal “dedicated to the promotion of videos created by women (in its most inclusive definition) by distributing and presenting them” (GIV website) At the crossroads of longevity, consistency, commitment, and the precarity that accompanies most forms of feminist labor, GIV is one of the most important “accidental” archives of feminist organizing and expression in Quebec. Their curatorial practices resist any archiving separated from the practice of everyday life. This article focuses on the thirty-year history of Vidéo des Femmes dans le Parc (VFP), GIV’s annual public and outdoor screening of new works from an open call. We trace how this event serves to “call in” artists to build feminist community and continually change GIV’s definition of who their community is.
Curation as the Cure for the Archive: Groupe Intervention Video’s Vidéos des Femmes dans le Parc
Dayna McLeod is a media artist and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) postdoctoral fellow at Middlebury College, specializing in queer and feminist performance and media. Her works have been regularly programmed by GIV, and she also served as a curator for GIV’s fortieth anniversary programming in 2015.
Ylenia Olibet is a FRQSC Postdoctoral Fellow at McGill University. She holds a PhD in Film and Moving Images studies from Concordia University, Montreal. Her research interests focus on feminist film theory, transnational approaches to film studies, and reception practices. Her doctoral research focused on contemporary feminist film culture in Québec from a transnational perspective, and she has written two articles for GIV, one on their adaptation to digital dissemination, and the second (with Thain) on VFP’s move online during the pandemic.
Alanna Thain is a professor at McGill University and director of the Moving Image Research Lab. She is case study lead on GIV at Archive/ Counterarchive, and coauthor of a study on VFP’s move online during the pandemic.
Dayna McLeod, Ylenia Olibet, Alanna Thain, In collaboration with Groupe Intervention Vidéo; Curation as the Cure for the Archive: Groupe Intervention Video’s Vidéos des Femmes dans le Parc. Feminist Media Histories 1 April 2024; 10 (2-3): 198–214. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2024.10.2-3.198
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