ORPHANS 2022: COUNTER-ARCHIVES
Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, Quebec, Canada (June 15-18, 2022)
*We acknowledge that Concordia University is located on unceded Indigenous lands. The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation is recognized as the custodians of the lands and waters on which we will gather. Indigenous Directions Leadership Council, Concordia University (2017)
New York University join forces with Concordia University to present the 13th edition of the Orphan Film Symposium in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, June 15-18, 2022.
This biennial event brings together an international group of archivists, scholars, artists, curators, preservationists, librarians, collectors, distributors, documentarians, students, researchers, and others devoted to saving, studying, and screening all manner of neglected moving image artifacts. What is an orphan film? Narrowly defined, a motion picture abandoned by its owner; more generally, any work outside of the commercial mainstream.
Orphans 2022 focuses on ‘counter-archives’, by which we mean to invoke a disposition toward ‘orphan films’ that foregrounds not just abandoned materials but also stories, themes, and peoples often underrepresented, absent, or silenced by historical struggles for power, access, and survival. We aspire to include orphan films redressing historical injustice in its many forms and contexts, and to embrace films that offer such communities a voice and visibility. How have neglected, obscure, and previously unknown works recorded, (mis)represented, and imagined these constituencies throughout the history of moving images? What counter-archival practices allow us to access and understand such audiovisual materials?
Orphans 2022 will feature screenings and talks that address counter-archives as interpreted across diverse contexts. The symposium will cover a range of historical and theoretical perspectives through a variety of presentation formats. In addition to screening orphaned works: traditional illustrated conference papers; introductions to single films; performances, demonstrations, and interventions; and recent art pieces or media productions engaging archival or found footage. And, works from audio-visual archives, private collections, libraries, and other institutions large and small.
Presenters will discuss and screen re/discovered or recently preserved films from collections and archives around the world. As always, the Orphan Film Symposium showcases a diverse array of rare orphan film and video works – silent, experimental, non-theatrical, sponsored, independent, scientific, documentary, educational, newsreel, fragmentary, amateur, industrial, personal, incomplete, and other moving images from outside of mainstream cinema.
Orphans 2022: Counter-Archives is partly supported by Archive/Counter-Archive (A/CA), a major research project with a suitably consonant orientation. A/CA is “dedicated to activating and remediating audiovisual archives created by Indigenous Peoples (First Nations, Métis, Inuit), the Black community and People of Colour, women, LGBT2Q+ and immigrant communities. Political, resistant, and community-based, counter-archives disrupt conventional narratives and enrich our histories.”
With the climate and COVID crises in mind, we plan to stream as much of Orphans 2022 as possible for presenters and attendees who can’t or won’t travel to Tiohtià:ke/ Montréal.
Program Committee: chair Juana Suárez (NYU MIAP Director), Ina Archer (National Museum of African American History & Culture), Amalia Córdova (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage), Debbie Ebanks Schlums (A/CA Vanier Canada Scholar), and Charles Acland (Concordia University)
Organizing Committee: Matt Soar (Concordia), Dan Streible, OFS director (NYU), Haidee Wasson (Concordia), with Nicholas Avedisian-Cohen (Concordia )
The Orphan Film Symposium series is made possible by the NYU Tisch School of the Arts and its Department of Cinema Studies.
* Pronunciation guide (English syllables):
Kanien’kehá:ka [GAN-YEN-GEH-HA-GA]. Tiohtià:ke [JO-JAW-GAY].
Tiohtià:ke/Montréal is historically known as a gathering place for many First Nations. Today, it is home to a diverse population of Indigenous and other peoples. We respect the continued connections with the past, present and future in our ongoing relationships with Indigenous and other peoples within the Montreal community. Indigenous Directions Leadership Council, Concordia University (2017)
Our emblematic image is from this silent Super8 home movie by Helen Hill. New Orleans, ca. 2000-2003. Rescued from the flood waters after Hurricane Katrina, 2005.