this fleeting
16mm on digital video
live sound, 45 mins, 2003
In 1996 I was handed a boxful of ten-minute reels containing 16mm home movies. Shot on gorgeous Kodachrome and in black and white the films are an incredible document of a time in history—1948 to 1957 Vancouver and around the world—a stunning record of people, places and activities. I was inspired to reinvent and retool meaning from these films. Until then this retooling for me meant a conscious highlighting of intended moments of spectacle, beauty and awe. With This Fleeting, I explore precisely the opposite. What of moments that are unintentional, unplanned, and finally, undesired? This Fleeting is, then, a reconfiguring of the minute and fragile moments of unintended beauty captured by a stranger in the middle of the twentieth century. Exploring the structural and visual fields with equal interest, a language of movement and invisible history is magnified, slowed down and meticulously uncovered.

"This Fleeting is a re-take on the empire of family, going back through a single family's archive and relooking at the moments, the gestures of inclusion and exclusion, the way they've managed to say yes with the camera. These home movies were originally made between 1948-1957 and feature bathing beauties, parades, cars, trips abroad and much much more. Relive the dream." (Mike Hoolboom)

Part of an application for funding used for this work.