INTERROGATING ACCESS 2

FROM LEARNING TO ACTION

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Interrogating Access 2: From Learning to Action is a collaborative project between Spectrum Productions, the artist-run centre OBORO, and the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MACM). Drawing from the Interrogating Access series, which was jointly hosted by OBORO and Spectrum Productions in 2019-2020, the project stems from a mutual desire to actively apply accessibility tools in visual and media arts milieus.

From Learning to Action will include a series of 4 public webinars in 2023, skills exchange workshops for staff in our organizations, and a 10-month artist residency.

PUBLIC EVENTS

  • Rebecca Singh has been audio describing film, live performance and visual art since 2011. Her extensive experience includes producing, writing and voicing descriptions on all genres artwork from around the world including art films, large scale art installations, dance and opera. Rebecca works with members of the Blind and partially sighted community on every project.

    Rebecca leans on experiences from her collaborative multidisciplinary art practice to navigate production needs and timelines. She is the founder and CEO of Superior Description Services and a contributor to the Routledge Handbook to Audio Description. Rebecca called Montreal home for over a decade and now is based out of Toronto.

INTRODUCTION TO AUDIO DESCRIPTION
FOR THE SCREEN AND VISUAL ARTS

This presentation will provide an overview of audio description, and encourage it’s incorporation into regular accessibility practices.  In particular, this workshop will focus on audio description techniques for video and visual art exhibition spaces including galleries and museums which serve to provide accessibility for Blind and partially sighted audiences.

A key goal is to consider the participation of all audiences, including Blind/partially sighted folx, when we plan events and create media, to learn and experiment with this practice, and to incorporate this into our professional activities.

Rebecca Singh of Superior Audio Description will guide us through the introduction to this topic in conversation with a guest(s) with lived experiences using audio description, starting with viewing media examples and discussing the practicalities considering both standard and creative approaches.

ARTIST RESIDENCY

Marie Samuel Levasseur, Les Bavardes (détail de l’installation), 2021-2022

  • MARIE SAMUEL LEVASSEUR

    Multiple Narratives and Sensory Voices: The Methodology of Chatter Applied in Audiodescription and Videodescription

    Dates: February 13 to December 13, 2023

    As part of her research-creation master’s degree completed in 2021 Marie Samuel Levasseur developed a creative methodology called “chatting,” a way of co-creating through multiplicity, micro-narrative and presence.

    During her residency which will span several months, she will implement this methodology through various stages of the audio- and videodescription process. Marie Samuel Levasseur plans to reflect on the notion of accessibility of alternative textuality through an intersectional approach (neurodiversity, gender, accent, race, origin, class); to explore plural points of view in order to question notions of neutrality and truth in videodescription; to experiment with a collaborative artistic practice of audio- and videodescription; and to explore and test a variety of renderings and dissemination tools.

    She wishes to offer the user-audience a selection of narrations according to two criteria: 1-the sensory aspect of the voice and 2-the personality of the narrators. She hopes to give a sense of agency to the user-audience and to the narrators through choice and through a human narrative presence.

    Learn more about the residency project here and about the previous edition here.

  • Marie Samuel Levasseur leads a multidisciplinary practice combining life and art and develops a collaborative creation approach through chatting. She uses multiplicity and micro-narrative to counter the unspeakable and to account for the plurality of identities in the expression of self-narratives related to significant life experiences. As a curator and editor at the Centre for Arts and Social Innovation of the National Theatre School of Canada, she participates in the development of laboratories and knowledge-sharing platforms aimed at well-being through creation. She holds a Master’s degree in Visual and Media Arts from UQAM and has completed exchanges in film at Université de Montréal and in micro-editing at EESI Poitiers-Angoulême. She has also completed graduate studies in pedagogy, focusing on accessibility and ableism, and is currently pursuing research in Native Studies.

    mariesamuel.com

  • October 11, 2023 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm