Colin Campbell
Birth : 1942-06-15, Reston, Manitoba
Death : 2001-10-16
History
Colin Campbell was born in Reston, Manitoba in 1942. He gained his Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg in 1966 and his Masters of Fine Art degree from Claremont Graduate School in California in 1969. After completing his education, he returned to Canada to teach at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, where he stayed until 1972 – a watershed year in Campbell’s artistic development. As one of the pioneers of video art in Canada, Toronto based artist Colin Campbell has had an international career that parallels the development of video art. Originally a sculptor, Campbell was first introduced to video in 1972, as the technology was beginning to emerge. “For me, video’s appeal lay in its potential for theatricality, performance and narrative,” said Campbell in Now Magazine. “The first subject of those things was myself. Gradually I started to turn the camera outward, developing characters and personae much different from my own.” Campbell avoids slick television style video production in favour of his highly developed grass roots style, which Bruce Ferguson has called the “aesthetics of poverty.”
Campbell’s narratives explore gender-bending scenarios, rich with humour and pathos. In his exploration of gender stereotypes, Campbell has consistently kept to informal styles and scripts, cheap and homespun sets, and a cast often made up of himself and friends, including Ferguson, artists Johanna Householder and Tanya Mars, and fellow video veteran Lisa Steele. His approach was perhaps best described by Adele Freedman in Toronto Life: “Campbell is the kind of romantic who can sense tragic potential in a package of Kraft dinner.”
The ghost of "patient zero", who allegedly first brought AIDS to North America - materialises and tries to contact old friends. Meanwhile, the Victorian explorer Sir Richard Burton, who drank from the Fountain of Youth and now works as Chief Taxidermist at the Toronto Natural history Museum, is trying to organise an exhibition about the disease for the museum's "Hall of Contagion".
Producer
Skin is not a documentary, but an evocative and moving dramatization of women coming to terms with the pandemic that is AIDS. The metaphoric voice of the skin provides a counterpoint as four women talk about how AIDS has disrupted their lives. Brenda and Hedde courageously address the isolation and stigma of their personal lives when they go public as People Living With AIDS (PLWAs). Ann and Lucille confront (through each other), the complex social, cultural and medical agendas surrounding women and AIDS. In Skin, women speak powerfully and urgently of their experience with AIDS, their voices breaking through the silence of neglect created by the media.
Writer
Skin is not a documentary, but an evocative and moving dramatization of women coming to terms with the pandemic that is AIDS. The metaphoric voice of the skin provides a counterpoint as four women talk about how AIDS has disrupted their lives. Brenda and Hedde courageously address the isolation and stigma of their personal lives when they go public as People Living With AIDS (PLWAs). Ann and Lucille confront (through each other), the complex social, cultural and medical agendas surrounding women and AIDS. In Skin, women speak powerfully and urgently of their experience with AIDS, their voices breaking through the silence of neglect created by the media.
Director
Skin is not a documentary, but an evocative and moving dramatization of women coming to terms with the pandemic that is AIDS. The metaphoric voice of the skin provides a counterpoint as four women talk about how AIDS has disrupted their lives. Brenda and Hedde courageously address the isolation and stigma of their personal lives when they go public as People Living With AIDS (PLWAs). Ann and Lucille confront (through each other), the complex social, cultural and medical agendas surrounding women and AIDS. In Skin, women speak powerfully and urgently of their experience with AIDS, their voices breaking through the silence of neglect created by the media.
Art Direction
A mystery man brings together a group of dead, gay artists to investigate a police response to the dilema of wash-room sex in Toronto. The artists have seven days in which to report on the ethics of police tactics. The artists infiltrate the police only to discover that they themselves are under surveillance as a political subversive group. The artists explore and report on the evolution of toilets and wash-room behavior.
Director
The two central characters are breaking up. Moira flees to Paris; Stan goes up north with gay writer friend, Timothy. Moira returns and joins Stan and Timothy up north to sort things out. Roberta, Stan's old friend also arrives. The next 24 hours reveal the assortment of tensions, expectations, humour and discontents of four people experiencing the difficult transition to middle age. The four characters return to Toronto to resume their separate lives.
The two central characters are breaking up. Moira flees to Paris; Stan goes up north with gay writer friend, Timothy. Moira returns and joins Stan and Timothy up north to sort things out. Roberta, Stan's old friend also arrives. The next 24 hours reveal the assortment of tensions, expectations, humour and discontents of four people experiencing the difficult transition to middle age. The four characters return to Toronto to resume their separate lives.
Documentary about the ten days the director spent in Moscow, during the 1986 Moscow Youth Festival, as kind of a gay delegate.
Director
No Voice Over is a story of communication and affection, focusing on the close ties between three women artists as they correspond via audio and video tape as they travel to Italy, Brazil, and Texas. All three have an off screen working relationship with a producer called Dix-Ten. The tape details a series of visions or second-sight experiences that one woman has about the other. These events are disturbing and seem to contain some ominous portent, which remains unclear until the end of the tape, when it is revealed that the visions are in fact premonitions of one of the woman's death.
Director
A 60 minute tape that tells in flash-form the story of a European critic and her relationship to three people; her lesbian lover who died of cancer, a Canadian / director in theatre, and a young performance artist who adopts her persona in a performance. The issue deals with sexual roles, love relationships and women's views of themselves in social/sexual relationships with women and men.
Anna
A 60 minute tape that tells in flash-form the story of a European critic and her relationship to three people; her lesbian lover who died of cancer, a Canadian / director in theatre, and a young performance artist who adopts her persona in a performance. The issue deals with sexual roles, love relationships and women's views of themselves in social/sexual relationships with women and men.
Director
Mary Brown, the head of Ontario's Censor Board, spends an afternoon with the gals cut, cut, cutting.
Director
Two main characters, a young gay man, and his female (heterosexual) boss exchange stories about their personal problems, (his difficulties about being gay, and his fears about losing his job because of it). She talks of her neglectful husband whom she suspects is having an affair with another woman.
Camera Operator
Two main characters, a young gay man, and his female (heterosexual) boss exchange stories about their personal problems, (his difficulties about being gay, and his fears about losing his job because of it). She talks of her neglectful husband whom she suspects is having an affair with another woman.
Director
A sequel to Modern Love, Bad Girls chronicles the rise and fall of Robin and Heide at the Cabana Room as a two-woman band called Robin and the Robots. They are terrible and become an overnight success. The worldly European, Heide, becomes a cocaine addict, but plays her cards right, keeps her mouth shut, and becomes the new (solo) Diva of the Cabana Room with an avant-garde swastika and combat-gear skinhead act. Robin does talk shows (and gets sued), has a lesbian affair with her manager, the fascistic Ms. Susan (and gets burned), and finally does a nude photo session (and gets fired).
A sequel to Modern Love, Bad Girls chronicles the rise and fall of Robin and Heide at the Cabana Room as a two-woman band called Robin and the Robots. They are terrible and become an overnight success. The worldly European, Heide, becomes a cocaine addict, but plays her cards right, keeps her mouth shut, and becomes the new (solo) Diva of the Cabana Room with an avant-garde swastika and combat-gear skinhead act. Robin does talk shows (and gets sued), has a lesbian affair with her manager, the fascistic Ms. Susan (and gets burned), and finally does a nude photo session (and gets fired).
Director
Modern Love is the story of Xerox operator, Robin, who falls in love with a sleazy show business type named Lamont Del Monte. Their disastrous love affair is paralleled by a frustrating relationship between Heidi (who only speaks German) and Pierre (who only speaks French).
Modern Love is the story of Xerox operator, Robin, who falls in love with a sleazy show business type named Lamont Del Monte. Their disastrous love affair is paralleled by a frustrating relationship between Heidi (who only speaks German) and Pierre (who only speaks French).
Director
An ironic flip/flop between voyeur/exhibitionist tendencies, where the subject is the object-they are one and the same person exploring the necessarily cooperative choreography implicit in such a relationship. The tape title, finally, is a misnomer. A tease. It should be called 'I'm an exhibitionist,' however, this is subverted by making the viewer complicit with the 'voyeur' of the title of the tape.
An ironic flip/flop between voyeur/exhibitionist tendencies, where the subject is the object-they are one and the same person exploring the necessarily cooperative choreography implicit in such a relationship. The tape title, finally, is a misnomer. A tease. It should be called 'I'm an exhibitionist,' however, this is subverted by making the viewer complicit with the 'voyeur' of the title of the tape.
