Snow Screening 2025

Starlight Sojourn is a collaborative animation project by artists Darcy Tara McDiarmid and Chantal Rousseau. Created from watercolours, fluid acrylic paintings, and digital imagery, it features local fish, birds, and animals traversing a dreamlike night-time landscape in the Yukon.

Bios: Chantal Rousseau is a queer settler artist from French Canadian and Ukrainian ancestry. Her work uses embodied experience and research to learn about specific ecosystems. She is curious about points of connection between humans and non-humans, species diversity, conservation initiatives, and exploring a personal relationship to the natural world. She is a painter, animator, and sound and installation artist.

Darcy Tara McDiarmid is a Hän and Northern Tutchone artist from the crow clan. Darcy draws inspiration from nature, trying to capture the pristine beauty of our natural world. She believes in honouring her ancestors by devoting her art to heritage and culture and the reclamation of traditional practices. She is a carver, painter, illustrator, storyteller and filmmaker.

This animated video uses experimental clips to explore the central emotional themes of Shoyo and Nimi, a game I have been working on for several years. It visualizes the poignant journey through loss, connection, and the often-distorted nature of new beginnings. The fragmented, dreamlike aesthetic of the video is intentionally crafted to mirror the game's unique atmosphere. The accompanied music was also something I produced specifically for the game itself and these two characters.

Bio: Jessica Hefford is a Newfoundland-based LGBTQ+ artist who grew up in Buchans NL. She currently resides in Corner Brook following the completion of her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree at Memorial University's Grenfell Campus. Utilizing her degree Jessica exhibited work in several exhibitions within Canada and the UK. Jessica is a multidisciplinary artist with a main focus in digital art. Throughout her work she utilizes her versatile art style to create story driven narratives and character design. Specifically focusing on video game development.

In the backyard of Betty’s home is a lemon tree. I found myself squeezing the abundant lemons, which sparked a new path. I began to envision combining a lemon with an urchin; the lemon rinds transformed into a symbol of ocean acidity. I was struck by the homologous forms and structures between a lemon and a sea urchin, such as the distinctive belly button indent, and I embarked to merge elements from both entities. This hybrid creation extends beyond physical properties, standing in as a key object that unlocks memory in my relationship and impact on Malaki’s landscape. In the imaginative installation Attraction – Clever Repulsion (Malaki), I explored these speculations of Malaki through a video component the video depicted the freshly cut lemon rinds from the lemonade experiments floating in the sea. As the footage progresses, my body emerges intermittently, almost blending into the scenery as I reach for the split lemon halves, grasping and releasing against the backdrop of a cemented sea floor. The lemon’s acidic nature is a metaphor for the increased acidity and the warming climate change brings. In the video, I place the lemons in the sea, demonstrating the human impact. On the other hand, the urchin I had taken out of the sea acts like a sponge, absorbing water acidity. Creating a gestural video in the landscape and a sculpture back in the studio exemplifies how I embody landscape.

Bio:

Sophia Hatzikos researches through swimming, letting the perspective of the water shape her observations of a landscape. Investigating her surroundings, she uses site-reactive interactions, video documentation, and studio-based processes to explore landscape. Through sculpture, she attempts to preserve the fleeting moments of lived experiences, questioning how the human use of landscape alters our experience within it. Hatzikos is currently the Post MFA Fellow at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Art at Wash U. She is co/founder of Reverb a curatorial and programming initiative in Eureka MO.

This work takes the audience on a mysterious ride through the Labrador interior near Ashuanipi River, haunted by memories of extraction. 

Bio: Tanea Hynes (b. 1996 Labrador City, NL) has shown work across North America and in Europe, and self-published an artist edition entitled WORKHORSE in 2021. Her work is held in both public and private collections, in Canada and abroad. Most recently, her work was acquired by The Canada Council Art Bank. Hynes is the 2021 winner of the Roloff Beny Foundation Fellowship in photography from Concordia University, was long-listed for the 2022 and 2023 Scotiabank New Generation Photography Award, and most recently exhibited her first European solo show called Locally Hated at KIN in Brussels, Belgium. Hynes is a visual art editor for Riddle Fence Journal of Art and Culture. She is represented in Europe by KIN in Brussels, Belgium.

First created in response to a growing threat of nuclear devastation, the Doomsday Clock has since adapted to include more pressing issues like pollution and climate change which now threaten to make our planet uninhabitable. Growing up surrounded by the consequences of other people's greed and neglect has caused a generation of people to develop eco-anxiety. A reflection of constantly being overwhelmed with news of death and disaster, many of us may not be able to put a name to it but we are filled with a sense of near-constant dread concerning the future—or lack thereof. We have inherited a world on the brink of collapse and I will not forgive those who have done nothing to prevent it.
       The Doomsday Clock currently stands at 100 seconds to midnight.
                                                 99…
                                                           98…
                                                                    97…

Bio: Tiffany Elizabeth is a multidisciplinary, LGBTQA+ artist, with a BFA from Memorial University of Newfoundland’s Grenfell campus. Although currently based in Corner Brook, she was raised in the vibrant artistic community of rural Botwood (NL). There, she cultivated her passion for art and community, collaborating often with the nationally acclaimed Botwood Mural Arts Society. Specializing in photography and painting, Tiffany is dedicated to creating murals that make a lasting positive impact on her community. With a love of nature and storytelling, her practice celebrates the beauty of the mundane. Through murals, photographs, painting, and mixed media, her work centers on reflections, narratives, folklore, and everyday life, weaving together personal stories and collective experiences to create a mosaic highlighting things often overlooked. Her artistic journey has taken her abroad to Harlow, England, where she immersed herself in nature and art galleries. Her work has been featured in exhibitions in both Canada and the UK.

Found badge pins from the 1970s bearing activist slogans are animated with a soundtrack from the 2019 climate march in Toronto, Canada. Pre-internet, these pins helped wearers share ideals publicly, and exemplify the optimism of the era. Produced at PIX FILM Gallery, Toronto.

Bio: Hope Peterson is a media artist and filmmaker originally from Winnipeg, now living in Toronto. She is an MFA graduate of Concordia’s Open Media program. Her work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the University of Winnipeg, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally.

The film is set in a post apocalyptic world where this young girl can only experience the memories of her family through items she has collected. Her family is all gone and she seeks shelter in her empty family home until she realizes she cannot stay any longer.

Bio: My name is Heather Lowe, a third year Fine Arts student going to Grenfell Campus who was born and raised in Corner Brook. I hope to work in the film industry and would like to finally share my first short film. Here is a short description of the work:

FLORE is a video where two lovers fall in love over the phone during an endless night that they can only escape through each other.

Bio: Emily Sasmor is a new media artist based in Brooklyn, NY. They create “operatic” visual albums, through videos, animations, and video games, that explore the aftermath of violence — from domestic abuse to political terror. Their projects have appeared in shows, festivals, and screenings including; Curyatid in Hudson Yards (New York, NY), 20/92 Video Festival (Philadelphia, PA), Squeaky Wheel Animation Festival (Syracuse, NY), and Digerati Emergent Media Festival (Denver, CO). Recent awards include being shortlisted for a Creative Capital Grant, a Cultural Counsel Video Grant, and first place in Digerati Emergent Media Festival’s Digital Dialect section. They are setting up an experimental art publishing house, named NIGHT EYE TV and received a residency from the School of Poetic Computation. She received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a BFA from Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Temple University.

This video was originally made for Matt Sherstobetoffs Nuit Tonight, with the only requirement being that it had to be an ad and it had to be strange. As a trans person, I am intensely aware of how other peoples gazes and perceptions of me are often out of my control. Somehow, this morphed into The Dirt Salesman, trying desperately to convince people to avoid being seen, only to have his efforts fail again and again as people choose to handle life better than he does. He's certainly trying his best. 

Bio: Jamie S. Merrigan (he/they) is an actor, writer and director originally from Corner Brook Newfoundland. Jamie loves to explore queer identity through their work, whatever form it takes.

Zero, One, Two (2023) is a stop-motion animation made using chance operations, in this case the Tarot. Three tarot cards were drawn - (The Fool (0), The Magician (1), and The High Priestess (2) - and used to guide the animation and soundtrack where the numbers and imagery on the cards influenced the technical processes. This resulted in an inconclusive narrative that could theoretically be expanded through further interpretations of other cards.

Bio: Marsel Reddick is an artist and writer based in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal whose research explores identity, divination, queer art history, magic, ritual, and affect. In their practice, they consider the ongoing entanglements of selfhood and otherness through a variety of media such as claymation, sound, zines, performance, and installation. To demonstrate the tenuousness of selfhood, they attempt to facilitate experiences that challenge automatic distinctions between the self and the other, offering alternate modes of moving through the world. Marsel holds a BFA in Sculpture from the Alberta University of the Arts and is currently pursuing an MFA in the department of Sculpture at Concordia University.

Seek, Find, is a stop motion animation made with hand-cut collage that follows a lone crane traveling through various landscapes until they find what they're seeking. 

Bio: Monica Lacey is a Canadian/Italian multidisciplinary visual artist, writer, curator, and educator. She is inspired by flowers, water, ideas of home and belonging, and moments of change and liminality. She lives in Epekwitk/PEI on unceded Mi’kmaq territory with her husband and daughter, where, in addition to her studio practice, she teaches Kundalini Yoga and serves as director/curator for the Fitzroy St. Tiny Art Gallery, a miniature art space on her front lawn.

Nature is where it all starts – breath, growth, change, and transition. It can be big, all-encompassing and strong, or it can be small, light and delicate, but it is all something we want to honour, respect, and preserve. One With celebrates femininity and explores the connection between us and Mother Nature. The film also connects to the roots of modern dance and its early inspirations of nature and natural movement. The film was created on Treaty 6 Territory in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, and the soundscape combines musical composition and natural sounds.

Bio: Janita Frantsi is a contemporary dance artist originally from Finland and now based in Amiskwacîwâskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton, AB, Canada. During her time in Edmonton, Janita has danced with several companies, such as Mile Zero Dance, KO Dance Projects, and Edmonton Opera and created works for festivals in Western Canada. Some of Janita’s latest work has been with dance and film, and she is grateful to have had her films showcased from giant snow screens to warehouse walls to dance festivals to public transportation. She is excited to explore the digital medium to bring more dance to it! Janita has a Master of Arts in Dance from the University of Alberta that continues to inspire her to explore new spaces and ways for dance to exist in our world.

Animated short that is a mix of hand-drawn and stop-motion animation. Centred on the South Shore of Ontario’s Prince Edward County, a place of significant biodiversity as well as a high density flight path for migratory songbirds, Prince Edward County is also a popular tourist destination. This work is a meditation on access to nature, land, and temporary stays. The process involved shooting video footage in the spring and summer of 2024 along the South Shore, rotoscoping that footage and then returning in the fall to shoot the animation frames in motion on the trails at Prince Edward Point, and Monarch Point. The work is a way to grapple with rapid development, loss of public access to nature and the ongoing destruction of habitat both in Prince Edward County and across the province.

Bio: Stacey Sproule is a Picton-based multi-disciplinary artist, tarot reader, and teacher. Her work includes performance, painting, drawing, florals, video, animation, audio, installation, textiles and ceramics. Within these practices she explores questions of the numinous and investigates the place of ritualized acts and mystical practices in art-making. Her fascination is with the liminal, the ephemeral, and the magical.

She holds a BFA from OCAD in Drawing and Painting, and has exhibited regionally across Ontario, since 2007, including Forest City Gallery in London, 7a*11d International Performance Art Festival in Toronto, and the Art Gallery of Mississauga. She has taught at Workman Arts, Stonegate Community Health, Toronto Public Library, Regina Public Library, The County Arts Lab and The Canadian War Museum.

In this physical performance, the artist engaged with 360kg of black and white clay, symbolizing two distinct cultures. Through intense bodily movements, she blended the clay, representing my journey to let go of cultural divisions and find freedom in self-identity. The performance reflects the emotional struggle of belonging.

Bio: Grace Han is a ceramic artist originally trained in South Korea. She received her BFA from Dankook University where she specialized in traditional Korean ceramic techniques and skills. She received her MFA from the University of Manitoba and has been pursuing her career as a ceramic artist in Canada.

The Door of Paradise, a massive gate set in front of the Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, becomes the impetus to reflect on the contrast between a life of confinement in the San Quentin State Prison and the freedom represented by the ocean nearby.

Bio: Daniel H. Dugas is a poet, musician, and videographer. He has participated in solo and group exhibitions as well as festivals and literary events in North America, Europe, Mexico and Australia.

Compulsory Figure is a performance for video that takes place on a series of ponds, flood basins, and marshes that sit along the Niagara escarpment in Niagara, Ontario. Dressed in a skating uniform I assume the role of a figure skater determined to perform upon untouched icy surfaces that exist in the landscape. The title of the work comes from the skating term ‘compulsory figure’, which is defined as the carving of specific patterns or figures onto the ice surface by the skater’s blade. These marks made on the ice were the original purpose of the sport. As a self-taught amateur figure skater, my techniques are based on my own rendition of skating routines. While adopting this constructed persona, I critique the hyper-femininity of the sport and challenge its traditional context. Throughout the performance I remove the performer from the enclosed arena stage into the landscape. The video documents multiple perspectives of the performance as I prepare to execute my routine.

Bio: I’m an artist, educator and arts administrator of settler heritage currently living in Onguiaahra/Niagara, Ontario. I received a MFA from the University of Waterloo and a BA from the University of Toronto, joint program with Sheridan College in Art & Art History. My most current body of work researches the lives of Daredevils from the 1900's who were to determined to challenge Niagara Falls through stunt work. My work has been programmed in spaces such as Art Museum, Hamilton Artists Inc., Trinity Square Video, Idea Exchange, and Gallery Stratford. Most recently, my work screened at the Doris McCarthy Gallery in Toronto and at the Scene Nationale du Havre in France. I’m currently Co-Chair of Hamilton Artists Inc. Board of Directors, and faculty in the Department of Visual Studies at The University of Toronto Mississauga.

“Searching for Rest” was done during my New Media class and was just meant to be a little odd. A girl is suddenly influenced by some form of unseen force and goes searching through the snow.

Bio: My name is Gracie Skinner and I’m a third year visual arts student at Grenfell Campus.

This artwork responds to my familial relationship with agricultural dairy farming in Hastings County, Ontario, located on the the ancestral and unceded territory of the Haudenosaunee, Anishinabek, Mississauga, and Huron-Wendat, also adjacent to the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte. I recognize the crucial responsibility of preserving and protecting the land, air, and water for our shared future.

Pixel as a Seed considers immersive digital realities alongside small-scale ecological farming methods as I learn to care for a section of farmland operated by my family since the mid 1980s. I am reconnecting with the land following an extended bereavement period, my father died labouring on a neighboring farm in 2006.

Garnering knowledge on heirloom techniques and tools, microbial ecology, and soil health, this work feels like a natural extension of my arts practice, just as my art was a response to my rural upbringing. In Soft survey, weeds are telling me... audio field recordings and photo documentation from my farming diary are collaged within my lexicon of digital assets. Virtual worldbuilding allows me to challenge scale as I explore metaphysical connections between landscape, human spirit and my physical self. Pixelation of these ecologies prompts reflection on what is gained and lost in translation, and how this process of transferring information can inspire new ways of thinking, interacting, creating, and being.

Bio: Diana Lynn VanderMeulen is a multidisciplinary artist living in Toronto, Canada. Her practice is fluid between analogue and digital mediums with a focus on extended reality and cyclical material use as she develops expansive, multisensory environments. During an artist creation residency at Société des arts technologiques (Montreal) Diana expanded her interactive digital artwork A Boundless and Radiant Aura into a 40 minute, 360-degree fulldome AV artwork entitled I want to leave this Earth behind alongside sonic collaborator Stefana Fratila. This was shown as a live fulldome performance at MUTEK Montreal & Dubai, also adapted for site-specific immersive installations with Venus Fest at InterAccess 360 (Toronto), Nuit Blanche at Design Exchange (Toronto) and New Forms Festival (Vancouver). Diana’s developing project Pixel as a Seed was shown in an immersive video format at SHiFT Midtown (NYC, USA) for Climate Week 2024. Diana has been involved in many public and DIY ventures including exhibitions and installations with Debaser at SAW Gallery (Ottawa), Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Toutoune Gallery (Toronto), Manufacturing Entertainment & Video Pool (Winnipeg). In 2024 she led a fulldome rendering workshop with the Innovative Media Studios at Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts in Doha, Qatar. Curated by Sky Fine Foods in 2021, Diana’s solo hybrid exhibition Shimmer of a Petal, Now a Mountain Stream was hosted online with ArtGate VR, with in person exhibitions at Art Playground Buffalo (USA), CADAF Digital Art Fair (Paris, FR) and Synthesis Gallery, (Berlin, DE).

The film is a short narrative piece about a boy who runs away from home, only to encounter a stranger in the woods. I'm really interested in fairylore, especially that of Newfoundland, and I thought that the rough analog aesthetic of super 8 would compliment folklore nicely.

Bio: I was born here in Corner Brook, but grew up in Grand Falls-Windsor. I always had a strong interest in writing and TV shows and movies, but eventually became really interested in film while working for the Classic on High Street (GF-W's local cinema). When I moved to St. John's to attend Memorial, I discovered NIFCO, the Nickel Film Festival and the Women's International Film Festival and took a number of workshops to develop my skills in screenwriting and filmmaking.

Paul and Olivia represent a pause; a remembrance of the little occurrences that led us to where we are now. This occurrence features a subtle, gentle, and necessary memory such as your sibling playing with his new energetic puppy. This animation illustrates the importance of slowing down, caring for oneself, and redirecting one's life path during uncertain times. We all have stories of warmth and belonging to share.

---

Paul and Olivia is a hand-drawn animation that uses remnants of memories to focus on how even brief recollections can be pauses for reassurance. This animation is made from graphite pencil drawn on white index cards. The off-white background of the index cards has no landscape; the cards are blank, except for the muted texture of graphite, (which changes placement in each slide), appearing on the surface. The graphite line drawings are simple and brief; they feature my brother playing with his new dog in our old backyard.

Bio: Rachel Anzalone (she/her) was born in Inwood, NY, and raised in Manahawkin, NJ. She obtained a BFA degree from Stockton University in 2014 and an MFA degree from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 2019. Anzalone’s ongoing practice is a visual archive that captures specific relationships to placement, family, and the uncertainty memory. Through conversation with relatives and translating family materials from Italian to English, Anzalone wonders about distance and location based on the belief of what defines home. A repetitive task of layering transparent images through paintin drawing, and collage becomes an act of what she can recall from her past. Those layers are memories that will continue to muddle through time. Currently, Rachel Anzalone is the Gallery and Collections Technician at the Cape Breton University Art Gallery. She resides in Unama’ki, (Cape Breton), Nova Scotia.