Video Essays

Artfor? Framing the conversation with Steven Hill

The video arts-based research is based on a recorded interview with director, actor, and creator Steven Hill. By disrupting the interview through visual inserts and pithy philosophical responses into the visual frame we are seeking to unpack the conventional research interview. This piece not only playfully unpacks the objectivity of the researcher but also offers a field of visual play that formally furthers Steven Hill’s theorizing on the idea of frames and what predetermines the frames we bring to the project of art for social change.

Steven Hill is currently Co-Artistic Director of Fight with a Stick and Associate Professor in Theatre Performance in the School for Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University  in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Steven Hill and Patti Fraser shared a ‘history’ of collaboration that dated back to the AIDS activist movement in North American in the late 1980’s.  The entire interview with Mr. Hill can be viewed within artists interviews.

This video was originally published in Art/Research International Vol 1, No 1 at

https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/ari/index.php/ari/article/view/26101

A Walk, a Question, and Missives from the West Coast. Video Dispatch.

This art-based narrative inquiry sought to navigate a question posed in the call for the Performing the World Conference held in New York City in the fall of 2016.
The conference invited presenters to respond to the question: Can We Perform Our Way to Power? This question was inspired by the growing appreciation for performance as an alternative to knowing in human development and social justice issues. The question itself however became a point-of-departure for a narrative walk and reflection into the possible understandings of performance as performance relates to power and place. The video unpacks this troublesome question in the light of in-depth interviews and research conducted for The Art for Social Change Research Project.

Fraser, P., Harrison, F. & Fels, L. (2017) Studies in Social Justice (Visual Research and Social Justice) Volume 11, Issue 2.

The FUTURE?

The arts based digital research unpacks the ‘future’ of ‘community-engaged art’ as it is being re-imagined by young artists as it relates to the unraveling of the idea of community in this current climate of uncertainty. In this video the artist/researchers Patti Fraser and Flick Harrison juxtapose narrative inquiry and textual play with research interview in an attempt to draw light on the increasingly isolated and anxious state of young artists who attempt to navigate the uncertain terrain of community engaged art practice. In an invitation to the viewer to muse on the nature of research as the increasingly emotional state of these young artists unpack their own experiences in a research setting. The entirety of these conversations and many more are posted on this website.

Fraser, P., Harrison F., Fels, L. (2017). The FUTURE? Simon Fraser University.