Wednesdays, January 17 through February 28"Many of the tapes...take risks-risks of offending, of self-revelation or self-assertion, of political commitment, of resisting censorship, of not being accessible, of refusing to entertain or choosing to entertain in the face of catastrophe."-Curator Jenny LionJust beyond our northern border lies Canada, a country as big as our own. Yet what do we know of our northerly neighbor whose culture has been inundated by our vast media exports, leaving little for exchange save a handful of misnomers: polite white folks lost to an eternal winter. We have images, no matter how mistaken, of the landscape, the people, and their diversions, but such scant Canadian art, much less media art, ventures south that it would be difficult to conjure even an icy stereotype. Magnetic North, curated by Jenny Lion, serves as a conditional corrective, hoping through its diversity and sweep to offer up a first (and accurate) overview of Canadian experimental video. The breadth of activity represented in this six-part series is (not) surprisingly rich-from rarified experimentation to activist insurgencies, from indigenous communiqués to dizzying documentation. Though Magnetic North journeys to the earliest years of Canadian videowork, plunging deep into the black-and-white seventies, then emerging to full light in the present decade, it is by no means an historical survey. Rather, it takes the form of a collision of intentions, operating methods, and eras, catapulted by a sextet of thematic issues. Forty tapes by forty-six artists: Magnetic North will thaw the coldest impressions.-Steve Seid, PFA Video CuratorJenny Lion is a Canadian artist and curator living in the United States. She has edited a companion to Magnetic North, a 384-page catalog of essays and artist pages (available in the Museum Store).Magnetic North is a touring program produced by the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and Video Pool, Inc., Winnipeg, with assistance from Plug In, Winnipeg. Generous support is provided by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Canadian Consulate General, Minneapolis, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of Canada, the Donner Canadian Foundation, and the Millenium Arts Fund of the Canada Council for the Arts. Special thanks to Jenny Lion and Dean Otto at the Walker Art Center.Screening tapes are courtesy of argos, Cinéma Libre, Stan Douglas, Toni-Lynn Frederick, Group Intervention Vidéo, David Hoffos, Kanaal Art Foundation, Jana Sterbak, Vidéo Femmes, Vidéographe, Video Out, Video Pool, and V tape. All works on Beta SP. The following program notes are based on those composed by Jenny Lion.Please note: Programs contain some adult material. Wednesday January 17, 2001
