The Circle Project / What Fools These Mortals Be is a three-screen video projection that reimagines Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in a series of tableau vivants (living pictures) performed by 14 formerly incarcerated women. Produced by The Circle Project in collaboration with Vancouver artist Adad Hannah, What Fools embodies the joy of imagination and transformation as it asks us to reconsider the logic and inevitability of prisons.
The Dreaming is a companion piece to What Fools These Mortals Be. An interactive audio documentary, The Dreaming provides an intimate encounter with formerly incarcerated women as they recount their dreams.
The Circle Project is an evolving collaboration of artists and formerly incarcerated women in Vancouver, dedicated to producing provocative art together.
This project is guest curated by Amy Siegel, Creative Director of the ReFrame Film Festival, and is a partnership presentation between Artspace and ReFrame.
Public Reception (6-9pm), Feb 3, 2023
ReFrame Film Festival Closing event with remarks at 6:15pm
Feature Programming
Friday Jan 27 - Sunday Jan 29, 12-5pm | Intravene
An immersive audio experience about the overdose crisis in Vancouver.
See the trailer here.
Sat Jan 28, 2-4pm | Panel Discussion: What Role Can Art Play in the Overdose Crisis?
Featuring Alex Bierk, Mkwa Ghiizis/Crystal Hebert, Zoë Dodd, and Brenda Longfellow.
Following the discussion, members of Peterborough Public Health will be offering free naloxone training.
Friday Feb 3, 6-9pm| Love Positive Women Valentine Making
LOVE POSITIVE WOMEN: Romance Starts at Home! (LPW) is a project that uses social media to link local grassroots gestures of love. Using Valentine’s Day as a backdrop, LPW creates a platform for individuals and communities to engage in public and private acts of love and caring for women living with HIV. Going beyond romantic love to deep community love and social justice, LPW is call to action. It requires participants to reflect on how they as either a woman living with HIV or an ally will commit to loving women living with HIV and then do it. Through action, change can be made to fuel economies of love and compassion. Working from a place of strength, LPW focuses on the idea of interconnectedness, relationship building, loving oneself and loving ones community. By starting from a place of love, within oneself there are endless ways that the negative impacts that HIV has on women living with HIV can be lessened.