Ways of Undoing Presents: Video Essays in the Archive
Join us for this special event showcasing innovative video essay work made by leading video-essayists from around the world during a week-long workshop held in St Andrews and Dundee this summer.
Experiments with archival sources present dynamic ways to dramatise personal histories, cinematic encounters, filmmaking behind the scenes and stories of preservation. The programme highlights the process of making, featuring short exploratory responses to creative prompts and longer works-in-progress. The showcase will be introduced by Dr Lucy Fife Donaldson (Professor of Film Studies, University of St Andrews).
Content notes: explicit description of sex acts and still images of VR porn with genitalia obscured; bereavement; cancer treatment; footage of live birth; brief reference to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
About the project
This video essay showcase is part of a three-year project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council ‘Ways of Undoing: craft, collaboration and videographic practice’ based at the University of St Andrews and headed by Professor Lucy Fife Donaldson in collaboration with Drs Colleen Laird (University of British Columbia) and Dayna McLeod (University of St Andrews). This summer’s workshop - ‘Unthinking the archive’ - held in St Andrews and supported through collaboration with DCA, was the project’s first major event. The project continues in years two and three with workshops in Vancouver and Tokyo, and is supported by partnerships with DCA, The Video Essay Podcast, Locarno Film Festival and Meiji University.
‘Ways of Undoing’ explores how videographic practice can resist and undo entrenched hierarchies that structure both filmmaking and academia, instead prioritizing systems of knowledge and modes of making grounded in craft, community, and collaboration. The project builds on the videographic collective 'Ways of Doing', founded by Colleen, Dayna and Lucy along with Professor Alison Peirse (University of Leeds), and their collaborative work that emphasises process, embodied thinking, and collective action.
