About

Originally held in Vancouver from November 15th-19th, 1989, the ground-breaking event, In Visible Colours: An International Women of Colour and Third World Women Film/Video Festival and Symposium was co-founded by Zainub Verjee and Lorraine Chan in partnership with Women in Focus and National Film Board. With over 100 films and videos from 28 countries, In Visible Colours emerged amid socio-political upheaval of the late 1970s and 1980s that foregrounded race and gender and the politics of cultural difference.

Thirty years later we brought together some of the original participants of IVC, including Verjee, along with students, researchers, curators and contemporary producers. The event was organized in collaboration with VIVO Media Arts Centre, the national partnership of the Archive/Counter-Archive project, the Vulnerable Media Lab and SCCS graduate program at Queen’s University.

In Visible Colours: Remediated 2022 took place over the Fall 2022 online and in-person in Kingston at Queen’s University and at VIVO Media Arts Centre, co-hosted by the Vulnerable Media Lab. This site documents the events held in Vancouver.

IVF 2022 is grateful to our sponsors: Archive/Counter-Archive, VIVO Media Arts Centre, The Vulnerable Media Lab, SSHRC, Queen’s University’s Faculty of Arts and Science EDII Fund, Film and Media, Gender Studies, Black Studies, and Katherine McKittrick, CRC in Black Studies at Queen’s, the NFB.

Participants

Panelists: Amber Berson, Jade Courchesne, Ann Marie Fleming, Yasmin Jiwani, Karen Knights, Karin Lee, Midi Onodera, Gabriela Aceves Sepúlveda, Viola Thomas, Loretta Todd, Ana Valine.

Keynote Speaker: Zainub Verjee.

Screenings & Audio Installation

A selection by Zainub Verjee of films and video screened at the original In Visible Colours Festival by Ann Marie Fleming, Carol Geddes, Sylvia Hamilton, Mona Hatoum, Midi Onodera, Claire Prieto, Pratibha Parmar, Lotty Rosenfeld. Media was projected in house and made available online at the sites linked below. The archived pages contain descriptions only.

View screening info

‍Sept 23: Taking Care of our History

Sept 24: Embedding History and Remembering Trauma

Select audio from the original conference panels was available in the Microcinema, on-site at VIVO. Recordings courtesy of the City of Vancouver Archives. Link to the recording and a transcript.