Animator’s series spotlights homelessness

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This article was published 27/10/2022 (1171 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A local artist is using animation to tell the stories of people experiencing homelessness in the Wheat City, which will be on display at Brandon University this afternoon.

Chris Reid has been making a series of short animated films called “Twig,” since 2020.

Reid based the animations on interviews with unsheltered people at the safe and warm shelter at Samaritan House Ministries and the Community Health and Housing Association intake room, according to a Brandon University news release.

While the series is still a work in progress, what Reid has completed so far will be shown to visitors at the season-opening edition of the university’s English, Drama and Creative Writing Literary Exchange speaker series.

In a phone interview, Reid said her animations are done digitally, drawing each frame on a tablet device. Without prior animation experience, she said there has been a bit of a learning curve.

The work stems from an exhibit she held last year at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba titled “Nothing Smells in Absolute Zero,” which featured paintings, sculptures and drawings she made in response to those interviews with unsheltered people. Then, she started to create a series of animations based on transcripts from those interviews.

Through the series, she’s hoping to humanize people who are experiencing homelessness.

“I’ve worked with people experiencing homelessness for over 15 years now in my day job,” Reid said. “I know these people as people. I read the things like on eBrandon where they’re talking about panhandlers and such. It’s a different situation when you know a little bit about someone’s background, or you know their names.”

At the event, Reid will show off two completed animated shorts and one that is still in progress. The first is less than a minute long, the second is less than two.

For the first two films, she hired local artist Brendon Ehinger to provide sound, but Reid is giving that aspect a go herself for the third.

She’ll share information at the talk about her creative and research processes as well as share some of her insights on homelessness. She’s also hopeful she’ll find other people interested in animation, like she did at an animation workshop held at the AGSM earlier this month.

Though Reid doesn’t think she’ll animate all 50 interviews, she said she’ll work on more shorts down the road. She said she’s hopeful she’ll receive some funding to allow her to explore the concept of houselessness.

The speaker series has existed in one form or another for many years and now it’s making a comeback from the pandemic, said associate professor and organizer Dale Lakevold.

“We’ve been offering this series probably for the last five years,” he said. “It was actually called the Hawkweed Literary Forum before when it began way back in 2005.

“Last year, we had some events but they were just in class pretty much, over Zoom. With Chris being from Brandon, working in the community doing her social work, it’s really fitting. She’s also teaching in the visual arts department.”

The series used to be more focused on writing before opening to other kinds of art. Lakevold said there have also been plays performed, films screened and cabarets hosted as part of the series.

The next instalment will feature a talk from a Governor General’s Award-winning poet sometime before the end of November. The lineup hasn’t been nailed down for the next term yet, but Lakevold expects there to be two or three more talks before the end of the academic year.

Lakevold encourages people to keep an eye on the university’s online calendar of events at brandonu.ca. Today’s eventwill be held in Clark Hall’s room 104, from noon to 12:40 p.m.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @ColinSlark