Description:
Created as part of the Niagara Artist Centre’s (NAC) XCAVATE residency and exhibited in an abandoned office building, All I Had I Gave materializes some of my memories (and nightmares) of growing up in the American Midwest. 

I began by working with the NAC archive, which has an incredible collection of analogue film equipment, slides, and 8mm and 16mm films. The donated family home movies particularly struck me: sunbathing on the perfectly green lawn, blowing out birthday candles, prom. I then took familiar symbols from my upbringing (religious crosses, stars and stripes, fireworks, soaring eagles, a pair of sexy legs) and digitally animated them into a series of short, repetitive sequences. The animations were separated into individual frames, laser-cut as stencils, and spray-painted directly onto the archival film before the reels were hand-tinted red. The film was later spliced into continuous loops for two 8mm projections. The projectors are positioned so that each casts its image into the other’s shadow, illuminating both the film and the apparatus itself. Images of spinning crosses and stars obscure 1960s family footage. Each loop plays continuously until the film catches in the gate or the projector gives out. It’s the repetitive performance of American identity—whatever that means: faith, patriotism, family, sex… repeated until exhaustion.

Artist Bio:
Christina Dovolis is an interdisciplinary filmmaker and geographer, often mixing old and new technologies to explore how our built environments shape community, identity, and embodiment. As an educator, Christina is committed to making new media programs more accessible to the public, particularly focusing on empowering women. She has achieved acclaim for her projects, with presentations at Museum of the Moving Image, SXSW Sydney, Aga Khan Museum, Kasseler Dokfest, Fantasia, and more.