Found-Footage and Archival Experimental Filmmaking with G. Anthony Svatek and Kaija Siirala

Wednesday, April 16, 6–8 pm

Free or suggested donation. Limited capacity.

Register below

In this special workshop led by G. Anthony Svatek (Brooklyn, NY) and Kaija Siirala (Hamilton, ON), participants will learn about creative approaches and strategies for making experimental films using no-cost archival, found, and/or reappropriated materials. Resources for both image and sound archives will be explored, as well as examples of historical and contemporary artists who work with such materials, including work by Bruce Conner among others. Students will also gain basic knowledge of legal frameworks for re-appropriating images and sounds, including acquiring material releases, credit attribution, and frameworks such as Creative Commons among others. Open to anyone new to making artist-driven and non- commercial found-footage filmmaking.

Attendees: Squeaky Wheel is located in Suite 310 of Tri-Main Center. Take the elevator to the third floor, and head left. Please note that you cannot enter Tri-Main Center after 7:30 pm. Click here to see parking, transportation, and accessibility information.

This event is part of the Spring session of Squeaky Wheel’s Workspace Residency, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Visual Arts and Teiger Foundation.

Biographies of the artists

Having grown up at the foot of the Austrian Alps, G. Anthony Svatek is awed by the living world and how it is increasingly impacted by our techno-urban lives. Anthony’s work screened at NYFF, Intl FF Rotterdam, Ann Arbor, Big Sky, Prismatic Ground, DOCNYC, amongst others. Supporters include NYSCA, Simons Foundation, Austrian Cultural Forum NY. He is the recipient of the New Visions Golden Gate Award at SFFILM. Commissioned work includes projects for NYS Parks, BBC, Deutsche Welle, and Pioneer Works. He has staffed seasonally at the Flaherty Film Seminar, The Climate Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History.

Kaija Siirala works in documentary media as a picture editor, sound designer and educator. She has a keen interest in process-based collaboration and storytelling that pushes against the bounds of classical narrative structures. Films she has worked on have screened at the National Gallery of Canada, True/False Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, MoMI First Look, Hot Docs, DOC NYC, Big Sky, AFI fest, IDFA, DOK Leipzig, Flaherty Seminar 2023, Prismatic Ground and as a New York Times Op-Doc. Her audio work has appeared on the BBC, On Air Fest and in installation contexts. She was a member-in-residence of the Meerkat Media Collective in Brooklyn, NY from 2016-2018. In May 2018, she completed her MFA in Integrated Media Arts at Hunter College (CUNY) and is now based in Hamilton, ON.

Banner image: Audience of seated men attending a petroleum conference in the 1950s overlaid with a waterfall in a National Park. Courtesy of G. Anthony Svatek