Film and Media Working for and Against the Environment

In this first event as part of the Unearthing Environmental Injustice series, we shall hear from a quartet of speakers who situate themselves across film theory and film practice, and whose work focuses on the environmental impact of film, as well as film’s potential for making us cognizant of the effects of modernity on our habitats. Joseph Malbon and Yani Kong will speak about the hard facts of the carbon footprint of streaming media, and will describe the creative intervention of small-file cinema, engaging in their cosmic aesthetics which they help to curate as part of the Small File Media Festival. Filmmakers Jessica Johnson and Ryan Ermacora, meanwhile, will discuss their recent film, Anyox, including its construction using archival materials and its use of duration to suggest geological time, as well as British Columbia’s historical relationship with resource extraction, company towns and their role in environmental degradation. Combined, then, the presentations will allow us to reflect on film’s capacity both to destroy and to make us more mindful of our biosphere.

Ryan Ermacora is an award-winning filmmaker based on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations in Vancouver, BC. His work investigates the visible and invisible ways in which humans have engraved themselves into the biosphere. Formally, his work is defined by a structural approach to filmmaking, engaging with the optics of cinema while illustrating the experience of labour in dialogue with landscape. His work has screened at festivals and cinemas including Cinéma du réel, The Walker Art Center, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma, Open City Documentary Festival, DOXA, Kassel Dokfest, Images Festival and Vancouver International Film Festival. Retrospectives of his work have shown The Cinematheque in Vancouver, May 2023, and at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall in 2019.

Jessica Johnson is an award-winning filmmaker based on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations in Vancouver, BC. Her work is interested in the relationship between poverty, industry, settler colonialism and their impacts on the environment. Her work has screened at Cinéma du Réel, the Walker Art Center, Polygon Gallery, MDFF Selects at TIFF, Kassel Documentary Film Festival, and Open City Documentary Festival. Retrospectives of her work have shown The Cinematheque in Vancouver, May 2023, and at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall in 2019.

Yani Kong is a writer, editor, and scholar of contemporary art in Vancouver, Canada. She has published essays for The Photographer’s Gallery, London, UK; The Gordon and Marion Smith Foundation, Vancouver BC; The Freedman Gallery, Reading PA, and is a regular contributor to Galleries West. Kong is SSHRC Doctoral Fellow of Contemporary Art at the School for the Contemporary Arts (SCA), Simon Fraser University, researching reception aesthetics and contemporary art history. As a member of the Low Carbon Research Methods Working Group, she explores sustainable practices in streaming media. Kong is a faculty member in the department of art history and religious studies at Langara College and is the Yukon/BC representative for the Universities Arts Association Congress.

Joseph Malbon is a visual storyteller and media archeologist backed by an MA in Comparative Media Arts from the SFU School for the Contemporary Arts (2022). His research focuses on forbidden broadcast mediums, including pirate radio and television, while his practice focuses on the use of outdated media tools to aid in social change against a digital age.

Social and environmental sciences converge in this interdisciplinary series as they explore how environmental inequality issues in society intersect with health, history, art, education, science, law, Indigeneity and more. Series conveners aim to delve into the complex nature of environmental injustice, exploring the factors contributing to these disparities and the communities disproportionately affected by them. Join them through this seminar series as they dig and unearth perspectives to promote awareness around environmental injustices.

Series Conveners: Hassan Ahmad, Law; Nadine Borduas-Dedekind, Chemistry; William Brown, Theatre and Film; Tim Frandy, Central European and Northern European Studies; Keunhyun Park, Forest Resources Management; Ethan Raker, Sociology; and Tina Wilson, Social Work