Min Sook Lee: Hogtown, The Politics of Policing (Canadian Spotlight Retrospective)

photo of Min Sook Lee
Wednesday, November 14, 2018 - 7:00pm

Hogtown: The Politics of Policing (Canadian Spotlight Retrospective)

Wednesday November 14, 2018 @ 7:00 pm | Bachir Yerex Presentation Space @ 401 Commons 

Hogtown: The Politics of Policing (winner of the 2006 Hot Docs Award for Best Canadian Feature Documentary)  is an unblinking look at the Toronto Police Services Board (TPSB), a civilian body that exercises civilian governance of policing.  Historically, appointees to the board have been supporters of traditional policing methods.  This summer, things take a left turn.  A newly elected progressive Mayor appoints left-wing councillors to the TPSB.  Hogtown follows the unfolding friction as a politically divided board stickhandles charges of internal corruption in the force, community concerns of racial profiling and an enormous police budget request during a summer of unprecedented gun deaths in the city. More than a decade after its Hot Docs premiere, we return the film to the big screen to re-examine policing in city politics.  The screening will be followed by a special talk with Min Sook Lee.

Reel Asian has followed Min Sook Lee’s active involvement in the community, as her work focuses on identifying important and social and economic issues in Canada.

In 2017, Lee directed Migrant Dreams, a documentary that sheds light on the untold story of migrant workers struggling against Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) that treats foreign workers as modern-day indentured labourers. She has also directed numerous critically-acclaimed feature documentaries, including: Donald Brittain Gemini winner Tiger Spirit, Hot Docs Best Canadian Feature winner Hogtown, Gemini nominated El Contrato, and Canadian Screen Award winner The Real Inglorious Bastards.

Lee is a recipient of numerous awards, including the Cesar E. Chavez Black Eagle Award, and the Alanis Obomsawin Award for Commitment to Community and Resistance. Canada’s oldest labour arts festival, Mayworks, has named the Min Sook Lee Labour Arts Award in her honour.

Currently, Lee is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University, her area of research and practice focuses on the critical intersections of art+social change in labour, border politics, migration and social justice movements.

A Statement from the Artist

I believe in the social function of art. The alienation of the artist from communities is a power blackout that goes both ways. I suggest that to forfeit the power of art to the mystification of ‘individual genius’ in pursuit of art for art’s sake is a strategy of political neutralization. My recent documentary work has been built around the experiences and stories of migrant workers in Canada. These projects have been produced in conversation with migrant justice activists and political allies in the broader social movement that counters border imperialism.  Activating the screen is a focus of my documentary work and creating spaces for my documentary projects to be discussed, expanded upon or used as an organizing tool is paramount to me. I have worked with unions, schools, community organizers, arts groups and faith groups to activate my documentary work. I believe more strongly than ever that genuine social and political change must be accompanied by media re-construction.  As Audre Lorde succinctly observed: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.”

Venue & Address: 
401 Richmond St W Bachir Yerex Presentation Space Toronto, ON
Website: 
http://www.reelasian.com/festival-events/hogtown/
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Meet filmmaker Min Sook Lee

Min Sook Lee - Migrant Dreams

Min Sook Lee - Migrant Dreams
Min Sook Lee

In Min Sook Lee’s award-winning documentary film, Migrant Dreams, a group of migrant farm workers dare to resist the systemic oppression and exploitation from their brokers, employers and Canadian government in small-town Ontario. The film exposes the underbelly of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. Speaking out is the last thing the workers in the documentary can afford to do, but it’s the only thing left to do. 

Migrant Dreams premiered at the Hot Docs International Film Festival in 2016 and has since screened in theatres and festivals around the world, with additional showings on TVO and Al Jazeera (the latter offering global screening through the month of May 2018). In May of last year, the Canadian Association of Journalists recognized Lee for outstanding journalism in the Labour Reporting category; the film also won a Canadian Hillman Prize for Journalism, and in 2018 garnered a Canadian Screen Awards nomination for Best Social Political Documentary. Some of Lee’s other award-winning films are Tiger Spirit, The Real Inglorious Bastards and My Toxic Baby. 

Min Sook Lee - Migrant Dreams
Min Sook Lee - Migrant Dreams

In addition to her practice as a filmmaker, Lee is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Art. “I’ve been doing this for 20 years, so I can share experiences, production tips, approaches to making work and advice on submitting work,” she says. “OCAD U is a unique fulcrum where you have practice and theory together, so I’m able to draw students into a theoretical perspective that’s informed by experience in the field. It’s core to have a space to have a practice and reflect on the role of art in society. It’s embodied learning that becomes alive and acclimated. It’s a great space to learn and teach in.” 

Lee advises young filmmakers and multimedia artists to think about content and not get carried away with technology. She also says the point of being in school is to learn about yourself: “It’s a deeply personal process. Self-knowledge takes some vulnerability and opening up. Be aware that it’s part of the making.” 

At the same time, she acknowledges that critiques and, later, reviews, will always be part of the process. “Anybody can be deeply hurt by critique and I know the feeling. My films get reviewed and I read the negative ones and I still feel that. We make what we’re doing to share with people, but you open up to a whole range of experience. You have to find ways to make it useful, know who you are and what’s important.” 

Find out more: migrantdreams.ca  

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LandMarks2017 Repères2017: The Book

White book cover with red zig-zag of textile on snow
Monday, July 9, 2018

LandMarks2017/Repères2017 was a Canada 150 Signature Project of large-scale, participation-oriented art and activities of national scope. OCAD U was a founding partner of the project and was among 16 universities that took part. To commemorate the project, Partners in Art (PIA) has collaborated with Magenta Publishing to create a limited-edition book for members, sponsors, and participating artists that may also be accessed online.

LandMarks2017/Repères2017: The Book includes work by faculty and students across Canada alongside the work of 12 artists and several essays. Dr. Vladimir Spicanovic, Dean of OCAD U’s Faculty of Art, contributed an essay titled Pedagogies of the Land.

Funded by the Government of Canada in partnership with PIA, Landmarks 2017 invited Canadians to creatively explore and deepen their connection to the land through a series of contemporary art projects across the country in national parks and historic sites.

In the winter 2017 semester, Min Sook Lee and Laura Millard led a cross-disciplinary course that resulted in an exhibition for the project at Rouge Beach. Students engaged with diverse issues including concepts of nature, post-colonial issues of nationhood and narratives of identity, community and citizenship.

 

Film Screening of Migrant Dreams and Keynote Lecture by Min Sook Lee

Thursday, November 16, 2017 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm

2nd Annual Kerry Preibisch Lecture Series; Film Screening of Migrant Dreams and Keynote Lecture by Min Sook Lee.  Presented by the International Migration Research Centre.

This event is the Second Annual Dr. Kerry Preibisch Global Social Justice and Migration Lecture Series organized by the International Migration Research Centre. Dr. Kerry Preibisch was a prolific scholar in the area of social justice and migration, who died of cancer in January, 2016, at the height of her career. The intention of this annual memorial lecture/event will be to add to the myriad ways that scholars and students can keep her research and vision of promoting migrants’ human rights alive into the future. Invited speakers must bring a global social justice perspective to their lecture pertaining to migration, and are encouraged to engage directly with Kerry’s work.

Migrant Dreams: A powerful feature documentary by multiple award-winning director Min Sook Lee (El Contrato, Hogtown, Tiger Spirit) tells the undertold story of migrant agricultural workers struggling against Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program (TFWP) that treats foreign workers as modern-day indentured labourers. Migrant workers who deserve basic labour and human rights. Canada it seems, has failed them.

Free Public Event.

DATE AND TIME

Thu, 16 November 2017

7:00 PM – 9:30 PM EST

LOCATION

Balsillie School of International Affairs: Multipurpose Room

67 Erb Street West

Waterloo, ON N2L 6C2

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2nd-annual-kerry-preibisch-lecture-series-film-screening-of-migrant-dreamsa-film-by-min-sook-lee-tickets-38048319548

 

 

 

Venue & Address: 
Balsillie School of International Affairs: Multipurpose Room 67 Erb Street West Waterloo, ON
Website: 
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/2nd-annual-kerry-preibisch-lecture-series-film-screening-of-migrant-dreamsa-film-by-min-sook-lee-tickets-38048319548
Email: 
minsooklee@faculty.ocadu.ca
Cost: 
Free Public Event.
screening poster with event details

StudentDwellTO: OCAD U, U of T, York, Ryerson take on affordable housing

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

The presidents of Toronto’s four universities – OCAD University, the University of Toronto, York University and Ryerson University – have teamed up for a new initiative called StudentDwellTO to tackle one of the biggest issues facing post-secondary students in the Greater Toronto area: affordable housing.

The initiative brings together nearly 100 faculty and students from the four universities to take an in-depth look at student housing in the GTA.

This follows a previous collaboration between the four universities: a massive survey of student travel behaviour, called StudentMoveTO, which revealed that long daily commutes for students – many of whom live far away where housing is more affordable – were leading to lower campus engagement and in some cases limiting students’ class choices.

StudentMoveTO and StudentDwellTO are parts of an initiative by the presidents of the four universities aimed at improving the state of the city-region – and, in turn, the experiences for university students in the GTA.

“Student housing is directly connected to the lack of affordable housing for many communities,” says Min Sook Lee, Assistant Professor, Art and Social Change, OCAD U. “This project allows us to bring forward student advocacy on housing issues and link it with the broader movement across this city. We don’t just need research on student housing, we need to mobilize it.”

Professor Jeremy Bowes is running a housing studio at OCAD U in Environmental design, exploring case studies and prototypes of student housing for the project. 

StudentDwellTO will look at housing affordability from a range of perspectives, bringing together disciplines including architecture, art, education, engineering, environmental studies and design, geography, psychology, real estate management and urban development and planning.

The two-year initiative will have heavy research and advocacy components, and the researchers will collect data using a variety of research methods that include:

  • wide-scale focus groups and accompanying surveys to draw out narratives surrounding students’ lived experiences,
  • interactive website and community arts programming and communication tools, and
  • interactive maps to develop affordable housing strategies.

The subject matter will also be incorporated into experiential learning courses, across all four universities and various disciplines, to propose and test solutions to the student housing experience and crisis.

Along the way, researchers will collaborate with government, non-profit, private sector and community partners in the GTA.  Each university will hold public events, including affordable housing charrettes, to get a wide range of input on solutions.

LandMarks 2017 Art + Places exhibition

Image of a sewing machine and clothing in the wilderness
Friday, June 23, 2017 - 11:00am to Sunday, June 25, 2017 - 5:00pm

LandMarks: Art + Places is a group exhibition created by OCAD University students at Rouge National Park. The exhibition is the result of a-cross disciplinary course bringing curator Tania Willard and artists Cheryl L'Hirondelle and Camille Turner in conversation with students to produce multidisciplinary site-specific works.

In the form of limited-term on-site interventions at Rouge National Park, the artists’ works considers the political, economic and cultural implications of the stories we tell about ourselves through our relationships to land. These works reflect the very concept of nationhood by reconstructing narratives of identity that embrace indigeneity, engage with realities of colonialism and reimagine contemporary Canada.

Participating artists: Abigail Permell, Cassandra Smyth, Debora Purcelli, Dimitra Roussakis, Kaiatanoron Bush, Lizz Khan, Natasha Hirt, Robin Love, Tia Cavanagh, Yawen Guo and Vishal Luthra.

In the course, through readings, conversations with the artists and curator, site visits and ongoing discussions, students and faculty sought to problematize ideas of nationhood, concepts of nature, and explore intimate and public relationships to land. This course frames a critical context that marks a multi-faceted dialogue about land and the occasion of 150 years of Canada, pointing to futures and to much longer histories than 150 years of confederation. Dr. Vladimir Spicanovic, Dean, OCAD University Faculty of Art, is the Lead Advisor, Curriculum and Curatorial Engagement, for the LandMarks2017/ Repères2017 project. 

Faculty: Min Sook Lee and Laura Millard

Opening reception: Friday June 23, 11 a.m., Rouge Beach, Rouge National Park

Free bus charter from OCAD University to Reception: Location, Bus leaves from OCAD University 100 McCaul St. at 10 a.m. and returns at 4 p.m.

Venue & Address: 
Rouge Beach, Rouge National Park Free bus departs from OCAD University, 100 McCaul St. at 10 a.m.
Cost: 
Free

Professor Min Sook Lee wins CWA/CAJ award for Outstanding Journalism

Photo of peppers on a table with workers in the background
Tuesday, May 2, 2017 - 7:00pm

The Canadian Association of Journalists has recognized Min Sook Lee, filmmaker and assistant professor in the Faculty of Art, for her documentary Migrant Dreams in the Labour reporting category. The award follows a Canadian Hillman prize for Journalism, also for Migrant Dreams, which Lee received in early 2017. Migrant Dreams tells the story of workers who came to Ontario to work in greenhouses as part of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The film, which Lee wrote and directed, focuses mainly on a group of women from Indonesia who work packing vegetables in the southwestern Ontario town of Leamington.

Lee has made numerous critically acclaimed documentaries: My Toxic Baby, Tiger Spirit, Hogtown, El Contrato and The Real Inglorious Bastards. Migrant Dreams is among TVO’s commissioned documentary programming and according to John Ferri, TVO’s Vice-President, Current Affairs and Documentaries, “forms a basis for an important conversation that is happening right now, in this country, about the rights of people who work to bring food to our tables.”

Tiger Spirit by Min Sook Lee to be screened at the Hot Docs Festival

Image of two men in uniform one with binoculars
Friday, April 28, 2017 - 4:00pm

Tiger Spirit,  Hot Docs

Friday April 28th, 2017, 4PM

Venue: TIFF,350 King Street W. 
Toronto, ON

This full-length documentary tells the story of modern Korea, a nation divided in half. The psychic scar shared by families divided during the Korean War in the 1950s is symbolized by the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) dividing communist North from capitalist South. Along this infamous border, filmmaker Min Sook Lee begins an emotion-charged journey into Korea’s broken heart, exploring the rhetoric and realism of reunification through the extraordinary stories of ordinary people. An eloquent tale of longing and hope, Tiger Spirit is an unforgettable portrait of Korea at a crossroads.

http://boxoffice.hotdocs.ca/WebSales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=62709~a4ecaa3d-d17e-4b8e-a995-0771bb3212fc

Min Sook Lee is an Assistant Professor at OCAD University, her area of research and practice focuses on the critical intersections of art+social change in labour, border politics, migration and social justice movements. 

Venue & Address: 
TIFF, 350 King Street W. Toronto, ON
Website: 
http://boxoffice.hotdocs.ca/WebSales/pages/info.aspx?evtinfo=62709~a4ecaa3d-d17e-4b8e-a995-0771bb3212fc
Email: 
minsooklee@faculty.ocadu.ca

Faculty member wins Hillman Prize for Journalism

Friday, March 31, 2017 - 2:45pm

Min Sook Lee, filmmaker and assistant professor in the Faculty of Art, has won the Canadian Hillman Prize for her documentary, Migrant Dreams. Lee wrote and directed the film, which tells the story of workers who came to Ontario to work in greenhouses as part of Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program. The film focuses mainly on a group of women from Indonesia who work packing vegetables in the southwestern Ontario town of Leamington.

Lee has directed several critically-acclaimed social documentaries, including: My Toxic Baby, Tiger Spirit, Hogtown, El Contrato, and The Real Inglorious Bastards.

Since 1950, the Sidney Hillman Foundation has honoured U.S journalists who pursue investigative reporting and deep storytelling in service of the common good. In 2011, the Sidney Hillman Foundation inaugurated the Canadian Hillman Prize, offering this prize to a Canadian journalist whose work makes a difference to the lives of Canadians.

 

Poster: 
Portrait of filmmaker Min Sook Lee

Culture Shifts presents MIGRANT DREAMS, a documentary directed by Min Sook Lee, Faculty of Art

illustrated poster of colourful skyline over row of buildings with silhouette of birds in flight
Monday, October 24, 2016 - 11:00pm

Culture Shifts presents MIGRANT DREAMS, a powerful feature documentary that tells the undertold story of migrant agricultural workers struggling against Canada’s Temporary Foreign Workers Program (TFWP) that treats foreign workers as modern day indentured labourers. 

Director Min Sook Lee, Gabriel Allahuda and Evelyn Encalada Grez of Justice for Migrant Workers will participate in a post-screening discussion.

Culture Shifts presents documentary media as a catalyst for critical discussions and community action for social change.   The series is sponsored by Indigenous Visual Culture Program, the Faculty of Art, Art and Social Change, and the Department of Integrated Media.  The screening of Migrant Dreams is presented in partnership with Harvesting Freedom, Cinema Politica and Justice for Migrant Workers. 

migrantdreams.ca

 

Venue & Address: 
100 McCaul Street, Auditorium (room 190_
Cost: 
FREE
illustrated poster of colourful skyline over row of buildings with silhouette of birds in flight

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