Season One: Contours of Identity

When we started working on this project, one of the characteristics we kept emphasizing was that of place—be it the city, region, or biome that we are from. In many of our conversations, “Prairies” became the word—the catchall—for the complexity of the place we were trying to encapsulate. As the project progressed, we started to wonder what exactly we meant when we said “making art in the Prairies,” or, “in the West.” With that question in mind, we decided to focus our first season on the Contours of Identity—in this case Prairie identity, and all the other ways of describing the land west of Ontario and east of the Rocky Mountains. Over the next few months we will have conversations, produce writing, and think about how we begin to answer this question.

The Beauty and Joy of Spending Time with Artists: An Interview with Conor McNally

When I watched Conor McNally’s 2017 film ôtênaw, I knew I wanted to find an excuse to speak with him and learn more about his approach to filmmaking. I was taken by the amount of space Conor offers within the film: space for Dwayne Donald, the Nêhiyawak storyteller and educator who narrates the film throughout, space for viewers to take in the stories shared, and space to sit with the land and the city that we all call home—its brutal history, as well as its gifts. The film’s layered form interweaves with Donald’s rich storytelling in ways that left me feeling connected to this place while also more knowledgeable about it. It’s a feeling that runs through all of Conor’s work; his ability to connect viewers so intimately with the subjects he works with illustrates the care and comfort he brings to projects and the relational ways in which he approaches the form.
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